Telling the Time Materials Required: A sunny afternoon Several large poster boards Dark marker A clock Adhesive tape A friend Except in the event of the sun being directly over you on a sunny day, your body always casts a shadow, though the lengths of your shadow may vary from time to time. However, what you seldom realize is that with your shadow, you can actually tell the time. With the...

Measuring The Diameter   Materials Required: 1. A ruler 2. A sheet of white paper 3. A pencil 4. A sunny day The diameter of an object is the measure of how big it is through its centre. Even though the sun is very far away, it is so large (its diameter is about 865,000 miles or 1,393,000 kilometres across) that the sun sends us its star light in a wide...

Leaning on an Axis Materials Required: Nine pencils Modeling clay Toothpicks Paper Protractor Research books Adhesive tape Hardbound book The sun’s planets more or less rotate on the same flat plane. This plane is an imaginary line that can be drawn through the earth’s orbit. Consider the sun being in the center of a large plane, with all the planets placed on the plane around it. If you could also draw...

Tracking the Sun Materials Required: A cardboard box Thin poster board Adhesive tape Safety pin A brick A sunny day Scissors Unlined white paper Clock Pencil An adult handling a penknife When the sun seems to move across the sky everyday, it actually means that the earth turns on its axis. With the help of a special charting box, we can actually track this movement for a long period of time....

Earth’s Hemispheres Materials Required: Pencil and paper Postage Research materials The imaginary line around the center of the earth is known as the “Equator”. The Equator divides the earth into two parts, known as “Hemispheres”. Due to the earth’s tilt on the axis, the Northern Hemisphere has summer, when the southern one has winter and viceversa. While the most famous star in the Southern Hemisphere is the Southern Cross, the Northern...

Distance to The Moon Materials Required: Pencil and paper Research material Have you ever imagined a spaceship that runs on pedal power, such as a bicycle? Then try to imagine a road going from the earth to the moon. Had you been able to pedal at the rate-of around 10 kmph, how long do you think it would take you to go to the moon? Find out the distance between the...

Discovering Comets Materials Required: Pencil and paper There are generally many people who enjoy looking at the stars and incidentally these are only the people who discover comets. The labeling of a new comet is done by attaching the year of its discovery along with a letter, which indicates the number of comets that were found in that year. For example, comet 2006D would signify that the comet was the fourth...

Changing Days and Nights Materials Required: Daily newspapers for 7 days Paper and pencil The earth’s rotation causes the Sun to rise and set everyday. This period between the sun rising and setting, is called a ‘day’. However, we hardly check, if the length of a day is always the same. Select a newspaper that states the time of the sun’s rising and setting everyday, as also the moon rise and...