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  • The Sun Lab

    Journal Article | July 2022

  • The Sun Is a Star

    Journal Article | August 2021

  • Online Extras: When the Sun Goes Dark

    Page | March 2020

    Online Extras: When the Sun Goes Dark If you have purchased When the Sun Goes Dark, you can view the accompanying additional resources online. These resources are for your personal use only and are not to be redistributed. To view the online extras, please type in the last word in the body text on the next to …

  • Diameter of the Sun

    Book Chapter | May 2009

    Although this lab is not an inquiry activity, it is another exercise to help students think about light rays and ray diagrams. The students think that the point of the lab is to calculate the diameter of the Sun. Really…

  • Pizza Sun

    Book Chapter | March 2012

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about relative size. The probe is designed to find out how large students think the Earth is compared with the Sun.

  • Obsidian Sun

    Book Chapter | March 2017

    In this lesson, students try to explain what happens in the solar eclipse, and why a person in one location can see a solar eclipse while a person in another place cannot. Key words and concepts covered are solar…

  • The Sun’s Energy

    Book Chapter | April 2016

    In this chapter, the objective of the activity “Making Sun Prints” is to understand that although we can’t see the ultraviolet light part of sunlight, it can have an effect on plants, our skin, and light-sensitive…

  • Q: What Color Is the Sun?

    Journal Article | April 2021

  • Sun Tracker

    Journal Article | December 2020

  • Where Did the Sun Go?

    Book Chapter | March 2012

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the position of the Sun in relation to the Earth. The probe is designed to find out how students envision the Earth as a sphere in space and its…

  • How Far Away Is the Sun?

    Book Chapter | March 2012

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about relative distance. The probe is designed to find out if students can apply the same scale used to represent the difference in sizes between the…

  • Aha! Moments in Sun and Moon Measurements

    Journal Article | May 2023

  • How Do Planets Orbit the Sun?

    Book Chapter | March 2012

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about representations of the solar system. The probe is designed to reveal students’ ideas about the overall shape of the solar system and the planets…

  • Understanding and Tracking the Daily Motion of the Sun

    Book Chapter | December 2015

    In this chapter, students will easily recognize the learning they do related to the disciplinary core ideas, specifically that shadows made by the Sun can be observed, described, predicted, and explained with models to…

  • When The Sun Goes Dark (Book Sample)

    Book Chapter | March 2017

    This richly illustrated book is a fun way to help young astronomers understand all the excitement during a solar eclipse. The book tells how two curious children and their grandparents re-create eclipses in their living…

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