Solar Camp
July 9 - July 13, 2018
Each day of the week we are exploring one letter of the acronym STEAM with the sun.
Monday started with S for Science. Tuesday will be T for Technology. Wednesday will be E for Engineering. Thursday will be A for Arts and the week will conclude on Friday with M for Mathematics.
Monday
Today campers explored the science of the sun. Campers created a representation of the size of the sun relative to the size of the Earth out of Smarties candy. The face of the sun is 109 times the size of the face of the Earth.
They also used a smaller scaled sun and modeled the distance to the Earth with toilet paper squares.
Not only is the sun big and the closest star to Earth but it is also very important to life. It provides heat and light. The light the sun provides includes white light and UV waves (more to come on those later this week). The light is important for photosynthesis and solar power. Sunlight can also be used to tell the time. Campers created sundials/equatorial dials.
How do scientists know about the sun? They look at it through telescopes. The campers did too. They used NASA/Harvard MicroObservatory website to look at images taken from NASA's telescopes. The website allows users to request pictures from the telescopes. The pictures they requested will be emailed in a few days.
In the future scientists may be able to learn more about the sun if they are able to travel to it. Campers finished the day creating telescopes and vehicles out of Legos and K'Nex that they thought could be used for sun exploration. Before they began building we discussed what would be ideal characteristics of such a vehicle (heat resistant - thick walls, shielded windows).
Monday started with S for Science. Tuesday will be T for Technology. Wednesday will be E for Engineering. Thursday will be A for Arts and the week will conclude on Friday with M for Mathematics.
Monday
Today campers explored the science of the sun. Campers created a representation of the size of the sun relative to the size of the Earth out of Smarties candy. The face of the sun is 109 times the size of the face of the Earth.
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| The big circle represents the sun. The singular Smartie in the bottom right corner represents the Earth. |
They also used a smaller scaled sun and modeled the distance to the Earth with toilet paper squares.
A similar activity creating the entire solar system can be found at
https://astrosociety.org/edu/family/materials/toiletpaper.pdf
if you are looking for a family activity.
Not only is the sun big and the closest star to Earth but it is also very important to life. It provides heat and light. The light the sun provides includes white light and UV waves (more to come on those later this week). The light is important for photosynthesis and solar power. Sunlight can also be used to tell the time. Campers created sundials/equatorial dials.
The instructions for the equatorial dial can be found at https://www.qwerty.co.za/sundials/howto/modeleqa.html. This model is designed for latitudes in South Africa. Use the red lines for the best representation of our location.
How do scientists know about the sun? They look at it through telescopes. The campers did too. They used NASA/Harvard MicroObservatory website to look at images taken from NASA's telescopes. The website allows users to request pictures from the telescopes. The pictures they requested will be emailed in a few days.
The campers also enjoyed looking at sun compared to other stars with the Star Walk app.
In the future scientists may be able to learn more about the sun if they are able to travel to it. Campers finished the day creating telescopes and vehicles out of Legos and K'Nex that they thought could be used for sun exploration. Before they began building we discussed what would be ideal characteristics of such a vehicle (heat resistant - thick walls, shielded windows).
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| Bella's Telescope |
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| Working together on sun exploration vehicles |
