Solar System Activities
The lessons below are teacher-favorite lessons focused on our solar system. For more search options or to search by other science target, missions and other criteria, visit our Fast Lesson Finder. You can also search by curriculum standards on our popular Curriculum Standards Quilts.
Our Solar System Lessons:
Exploring Ice in the Solar System (Main Portal)
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Our Solar System
Mission: MESSENGER (Mercury)
Short Description: The Exploring Ice in the Solar System education unit examines the importance of water in the form of ice in the solar system. From hands-on experiences with ice, the unit moves on to investigating ice in everyday life, in polar regions on Earth and throughout the solar system.
Getting a Feel for Gravity
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Our Solar System
Short Description: In this kinesthetic activity, students use their own bodies to create a model of the solar system and the forces the sun and planets exert on each other and on passing objects such as spacecraft.
Gravitation 3.8
Grade Level: 9-12
Body: Our Solar System
Short Description: An interactive gravity modeler that can simulate a solar system, and allows you to drag the planets into new parameters; this can be used to observe gravitational interaction.
Heavyweight Champion: Jupiter
Grade Level: K-4
Body: Our Solar System
Short Description: The students explore gravity and its relationship to weight by weighing themselves on scales modified to represent weights on other worlds, and compare the features of different planets to determine which characteristics cause a planet to have more or less gravity.
How Much Would You Weigh on Distant Planets
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Our Solar System
Short Description: Students view Web movies of astronauts on the Moon and discuss what they can learn about one's lunar weight; a calculator is provided to get their weight on other planets; a discussion of the causes of weight and gravity is then suggested with different hypotheses.
Ice in the Solar System
Grade Level: K-4, 5-8
Body: Our Solar System
Short Description: Children ages 8 to 13 examine different types of ices, discover where these different ices occur in the solar system, how scientists determine what ice is where, meet some of the scientists who are exploring these ice worlds, and explore why their work is so important!
Impact Craters: Holes in the Ground
Topic: Planetary Surface Processes
Grade Level: 5-8, 9-12
Body: Our Solar System
Mission: Dawn (Dwarf Planets)
Short Description: Participants model and examine the impact cratering process.
Investigating the Insides
Grade Level: K-4, 5-8
Body: Our Solar System
Short Description: In this 30-minute activity, teams of children, ages 9 to13, investigate the composition of unseen materials, using a variety of tools. This open-ended engagement activity mimics how scientists discover clues about the interiors of planets with cameras and other instruments onboard spacecraft.
Jump to Jupiter
Grade Level: 5-8
Body: Our Solar System
Short Description: Children help create and then navigate an outdoor course of the traditional "planets" (including dwarf planet Pluto), which are represented by small common objects. By counting the jumps needed to reach each object, children experience first-hand the vast scale of our solar system.
Measuring Solar Activity
Topic: Light and Spectra
Grade Level: 9-12
Body: Our Solar System, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroids, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Comets, Kuiper Belt & Oort Cloud
Short Description: Measuring Solar Activity is a multi-part exercise in math and physics for high school students and above. Students will learn graphing, pattern recognition by looking at satellite images and 250 years worth of data, making predictions, and recognizing spacial relationships.
