In this activity, students will compare the methods scientists use to study the Sun, including drawings made during a total solar eclipse in the 1860’s, modern coronagraphs, and advanced imagery gathered by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Space weather refers to the conditions of the space environment driven by the Sun and its impacts on objects in the solar system. Though it is almost 100 million miles away from Earth, the Sun influences our daily lives in ways you may not realize. 

This hands-on activity is the construction of an extended coverage area of eclipse glasses to provide extra protection for safely viewing a solar eclipse. This makes it harder to look outside the lenses on the eclipse glasses.

In this activity students will compare different methods for observing the Sun’s corona and make predictions about what they will observe during the April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse.

In this lesson, students will investigate the drivers of climate change, including adding carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, sea level rise, and the effect of decreasing sea ice on temperatures.

Learners use a compass to trace magnetic field lines of a bar magnet. They observe a CME hitting Earth’s magnetosphere and compare its shape to the magnet. They then apply their understanding of magnetic fields to those found on the Sun.

Hurricanes are the most powerful weather event on Earth. NASA’s expertise in space and scientific exploration contributes to essential services provided to the American people by other federal agencies, such as hurricane weather forecasting.

Explore and connect to GLOBE protocol bundles. Each bundle has related Earth System Data Explorer datasets identified.

Using a “fun-size” bag of rainbow bite-sized candies learners will place different colored candies on a diagram of the Sun-Earth system to show different space weather conditions during solar minimum and solar maximum.

In this activity, learners predict the likelihood of aurora on Earth by examining the Kp-index and using NOAA’s 30-minute aurora forecast.