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Handy Measuring Ratio
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In this activity, learners use their hands as tools for indirect measurement.

Using a Simple Astrolabe
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In this activity, learners use an astrolabe to measure the altitude of objects. Learners will first practice taking measurements by measuring the altitude of trees and buildings.

Balloon Impacts
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In this activity, learners measure the diameter of their water balloons, model an impact, measure the diameter of the “crater” area, and determine the ratio of impactor to crater.

Experiencing Parallax With Your Thumb
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In this activity, learners investigate parallax, a method used to measure distances to stars and planets in the solar system.

Launch Altitude Tracker
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In this activity, learners construct hand-held altitude trackers. The device is a sighting tube with a marked water level that permits measurement of the inclination of the tube.

Globe at Night
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In this international citizen science activity, learners measure their night sky brightness and submit their observations into an online database.

Equatorial Sundial
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In this activity, learners make an equatorial sundial, which is simple to construct and teaches fundamental astronomical concepts. Learners use the provided template and a straw to build the sundial.

The Size and Distance of the Planets
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In this activity, learners investigate the concepts of relative size and distance by creating a basic model of the solar system.

Finding the Size of the Sun and Moon
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In this activity, learners build a simple pinhole viewer. They use this apparatus to project images from a variety of light sources, including a candle, the Sun, and the Moon.

Jump to Jupiter
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In this activity, learners help create and then navigate an outdoor course of the traditional "planets" (including dwarf planet Pluto), which are represented by small common objects.

Build a Solar System
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In this activity, learners make a scale model of the Solar System and learn the real definition of "space." Learners use the online calculator to create an appropriate scale to use as a basis for thei

Dunking the Planets
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In this demonstration, learners compare the relative sizes and masses of scale models of the planets as represented by fruits and other foods.

Ancient Sun Observations
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In this activity, learners make their own Sun tracker to explore how ancient civilizations around the world studied the Sun.

Lift Off!
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This activity (on page 2 of the PDF under SciGirls Activity: Lift Off) is a full inquiry investigation into the engineering challenges of sending scientific sensors into space.

Solar System in My Neighborhood
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In this activity, learners shrink the scale of the vast solar system to the size of their neighborhood.

My Angle on Cooling: Effects of Distance and Inclination
Source Institutions
In this activity, learners discover that one way to cool an object in the presence of a heat source is to increase the distance from it or change the angle at which it is faced.

The Parachuting Egg
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In this activity, learners work in groups to design a parachute out of household items that keeps an egg secure when dropped from a certain height.

Kid Moon: Splat!
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In this activity, learners model ancient lunar impacts using water balloons.