STEM Club support - Primary SILVER Booklet
The following information is supplementary to your booklets and will help guide you through the delivery of your STEM club. This may include short how-to guides for the different activities or additional resources that you can share directly with your students or use to increase your own knowledge.
Important Information
These resources are provided by The Schools' Observatory project, which is part of the Astrophysics Research Institute of Liverpool John Moores University. This video introduces The Schools' Observatory Project.
The Liverpool Telescope (LT) is the World's largest fully robotic telescope; your students will learn to use it during this STEM club. More information about the LT, including its design and science capabilities, can be found on our web page: Liverpool Telescope.
We recommend you register for free as a Teacher before the first session you plan on running. Your students must have their own accounts set up to use the Liverpool Telescope during this STEM Club. We recommend you do this before the first session. This detailed video explains how to set up student accounts.
The booklets' sessions do not need to be completed in the order presented, nor do they need to be delivered as 6 x 1 hour sessions. You can split up the sessions and activities in the way that works best for you and your students.
Some activities involve sticking pictures into the student's booklets, so scissors and glue sticks will be useful to have on hand.
Session 2 - "The Sun" uses cookies/biscuits, chocolate chips, strawberry laces, pale icing, sprinkles, etc. (see page 14 in the leader booklet). You may want to buy these well in advance of the session.
Session 1: Day and Night
Why We Have Day and Night
We have day and night because the Earth spins on its axis. Every day (24 hours) it completes one rotation. As the Earth turns, the Sun and stars appear to rise in the East and set in the West. The pupil booklet has more information on this (page 4). We also have a video explaining 'Why we have day and night', on our resource page.
Activity 1: Create your own Play-Doh Earth
More information on how to run this activity, including a PowerPoint presentation, can be found in our Investigate Day and Night activity.
Activity 2: Sundials
The instructions for this activity are given in the pupil booklet (page 6). Templates for the sundials can be found in the leader booklet (pages 9, 10 and 11); choose the location nearest to you. Alternatively, they can be generated for a specific location from this website - Printable Sundials (web ink).
This short video explains what Sundials are and can provide some more background information for you and/or your pupils.
If the time your sundial gives you is not the same as a clock, don’t worry. Explain to your students that sundials can tell you which hour you are in, but not the exact minute. If your sundial is an hour slower than your watch, it might be because your watch is set to British Summer Time rather than Greenwich Mean Time.
And remember, never look directly at the Sun. The Sun's light will damage your eyes.
Session 2: The Sun
We have a video explaining more about 'What is the Sun' in our Things to do page.
Activity 1: Solar Eclipse Phases
Printable Eclipse Cutouts (PDF)
The pupil booklet in page 8 has some information on solar eclipses and we also have a webpage dedicated to the topic. There is also an animation at the bottom of our activity page 'What Happens During a Solar Eclipse?'
Activity 2: Solar Cookies
We have a video explaining the different features we can see on the Sun:
Further information on the different features can be found on our information pages:
Session 3: Space Art
Useful links to art videos on YouTube for inspiration and tips on producing artwork inspired by nebulae:
- Using chalk: How to Draw a Nebula and Planets Using Chalk
- Using coloured pastels: How to Draw a Nebula Step by Step - Coloured pastels
- Using oil pastels: Outer Space Art with Oil Pastel for beginners | Eagle Gas Nebula
- Using water colours: Watercolor a Colorful Galaxy / Nebula : Step by Step Tutorial
You may also find the following tutorials on galaxy-inspired artwork helpful:
- How to Draw a Spiral Galaxy with Chalk Pastels
- Kids Crafts: Pastel Galaxy Drawing Tutorial
- Galaxy Art with Oil Pastels
- Easy Paintings For Kids - Galaxy Painting With Lisa Whitehouse
- EASY watercolour galaxy painting tutorial for absolute beginners
You can show these pictures of nebulae to the club for inspiration.
For some background information on what nebulae actually are, and some of the most famous examples, you may find benefit in showing our What is a nebula? video.
Session 4: Asteroid Hunt
Background Information about Asteroids
To remind your students about what asteroids are you could watch our video: What are Asteroids and Comets?
And to give the session more context show them this video: What are the Risks from Asteroids?
Finally if you want more information visit our web-pages: Asteroids and Near Earth Objects.
Help in Running the Session
If you haven’t already done so, you will need to create student accounts on our website.
This session involves using our free software to view observations of asteroids. We have two options available. The first is called AstroLab and runs online in a browser, the second is called LTImage and needs to be installed on a Windows computer. Choose the one best suited to your needs.
You will need to make sure your devices are charged/available for the session.
- Asteroid Hunt Instructions using AstroLab (PDF) we also have a helpful video for AstroLab.
- Asteroid Hunt Instructions using LTImage (PDF) we also have a helpful video for LTImage.
It is a good idea to download the asteroid observations in advance and put them onto the devices the children will be using. Scroll to the bottom of the page and download the ah-demo and ahunt-10 files under the data files section.
Session 5: The Moon
Background Information about the Moon.
You may want to watch this video from our resource pages about the various features on the Moon at the start of the session.
If you would like to explore more detail about the Apollo moon landings then you may find these pages useful: Apollo Missions and Timeline of the Apollo Missions.
There is also lots more information about the Moon in our Learn pages: The Moon
Help in Running the Session
As with all jigsaws, it’s often easiest to start with the edges and work towards the middle. Don’t forget to check which way the words and logos appear.
We recommend printing off a large version of the completed Moonsaic so that students have something to compare to.
When trying to put the Moonsaic together remember to look for prominent features which may help, like large craters or ejecta lines. Alternatively, the seas/mare will appear much darker and have quite defined outlines which can be matched together.
The 'Moonsaic – Apollo Landing sites' is the quickest and easiest to assemble. The others take longer and can be a challenge. You may want to place an arrow on the reverse of these images to help with the orientation when assembling them.
Session 6: Mission to Mars
Background Information about Mars
You may want to introduce the students to Mars in more detail before carrying out this activity.
You can read all about Mars on our Learn page Mars or watch this short Mars fact file video from NASA: What You Need to Know About Mars.
Should you wish, you can use the following PowerPoint that we created to introduce the session:
Why Do People Want to Go to Mars?
- Exploration – it’s one of the closest planets to us in space and offers a step further than the Moon for people to explore.
- Search for life – there is a lot of evidence that water once flowed on the surface of Mars, and if there was water maybe there was life. We would like to explore the surface to find out.
- Climate change – at some point in Mars’ history it underwent rapid climate change which altered the atmosphere, and dried up the water flowing on it’s surface – we’d like to understand more about what happened and if we can learn any lessons for here on Earth.
- A safe haven – some people believe that it is important for humans to find other places to live in our Solar System so that if the Earth is no longer habitable, there is somewhere else to go.
Lots of countries have already started preparing for missions to Mars – this video details the Chinese test Martian basecamp in the Gobi desert (1m 17 sec).
Now, loaded with this information, begin your students on the activity.