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This activity lets participants safely view the Sun and study features on its face. A solarscope projects an image of the Sun on a flat surface, where visitors can trace its outline and mark any sunspots on a sheet of...

In "Exploring the Solar System: Stomp Rockets," participants learn about how some rockets carry science tools—not scientists—into space, and how a special kind of rocket called "sounding rockets" can be used for quick, low-flying scientific missions into space. Participants will...

"Exploring the Solar System: Solar Eclipse" is a hands-on activity demonstrating how the particular alignment of the Sun, Earth, and Moon can cause an eclipse. Visitors investigate the positions of these objects to create shadows and learn about solar eclipses....

"Exploring Earth: Bear’s Shadow" is a hands-on activity designed primarily for young visitors and their families. Participants move a flashlight around an object to make and experiment with shadows. The activity can be connected to a storybook about a little...

This Explore Science: Earth & Space events video highlights just a few of our NISE Net partnering institutions and their incredible work hosting events in 2017 in their communities between March and August of 2017. There are two version of...

This slideshow presentation (with accompanying notes) acts as a quick overview of your Explore Science: Earth & Space toolkit and the individual activities contained within.

"Exploring the Universe: Orbiting Objects" is a hands-on activity that invites visitors to experiment with different sized and weighted balls on a stretchy fabric gravity well. The activity models gravitational attraction in space. Participants investigate how changing conditions can cause...

This activity models the way Landsat satellites use a thermal infrared sensor to measure land surface temperatures. IR technology, like the IR thermometer in this activity, uses the infrared light emitted by an object to measure its temperature remotely (without...

The "Exploring the Solar System: Magnetic Fields" activity shows participants how scientists can use tools to study the invisible magnetic fields of Earth, the Sun, and other objects in the universe. Participants can see how the Sun's magnetic field extends...

Space telescopes can offer us better, clearer views of the universe (and of our own planet) than Earth-based telescopes can, but getting these large, delicate pieces of equipment into orbit is tricky. In "Exploring the Universe: Pack a Space Telescope,"...

These vintage-style travel posters were produced by NASA to spur the imagination about newly discovered exoplanets (planets beyond our solar system). These large pdf files are printable for your Earth and Space event.

It can be challenging to know what ideas and experiences learners already have when they visit an informal education venue. What facilitation approaches will help them build productive and deep conceptual learning about Earth and space science? When educators anticipate...

Included here are links to each activity training and content training video for the Explore Science: Earth & Space toolkit (2018 and 2017 kits), as well as a link to the entire Explore Science: Earth & Space toolkit video album.

This is a simple reference sheet, offering basic tips for leading the hands-on activities in your toolkit. It includes suggestions for engaging and encouraging visitors, as well as for handling difficult concepts and misconceptions. PDF and DOC formats included.

"Exploring the Universe: Imagining Life" is a hands-on activity in which visitors imagine and draw an extreme environment beyond Earth, then invent a living thing that could thrive in it. They learn that NASA scientists study extremophiles on Earth to...

This activity models some of the ways natural processes, such as erosion and sediment pollution, affect Earth’s landscape. Data collected from satellites, such as the joint NASA/USGS Landsat satellites, help improve our understanding of Earth’s land cover. Orbiting Earth, these...

"Exploring the Solar System: Craters" is an active, hands-on activity that demonstrates how craters form, and what they can teach us about the history and composition of planets and moons. By dropping objects of various sizes and shapes into a...

This activity encourages visitors to build an electroscope —a simplified version of one of the tools scientists use to study the invisible forces on Earth and in space. Participants will learn how static electricity works, how scientists can use it...

This is a collection of logos for creating your own Explore Science: Earth & Space promotional materials (ai, pdf, jpg, and png formats, in both English and Spanish, included). Individual logo files are located in the downloadable zip files.

"Exploring the Universe: Objects in Motion" encourages participants to explore the complex but predictable ways objects in the universe interact with each other. Stars, planets, moons, and other objects in space orbit around each other because of gravity, and NASA...

This comedic training video highlights a few facilitation strategies and best practices that facilitators and volunteers can use while engaging a variety of museum visitors with STEM related content. The video follows three competitors in the highly anticipated Edu-Cathalon as...

Included here are digital copies of promotional materials for your Explore Science: Earth & Space toolkit. In addition to ready-to-print materials, you will find design files and images for customizing existing materials or creating your own! For customizable materials, be...

"Exploring the Universe: Ice Orbs" is a hands-on activity in which visitors investigate a frozen sphere, trying to learn about objects hidden inside. Participants learn that planetary scientists at NASA are investigating "icy worlds" in the outer solar system, looking...

"Exploring the Solar System: Pocket Solar System" is a hands-on activity in which visitors make a scale model of the distances between objects in our solar system. They learn that there is a lot of space between planets, and that...

"Exploring Earth: Paper Mountains" lets participants explore the way the shape of the land and the pull of gravity influence how water moves over Earth. By making unique mountain models from crumpled paper and watching how water moves across them,...