At-home STEM Activities: Constellation Cards
The Discovery Center’s mission is to inspire every generation to reach for the stars, through engaging, artful and entertaining activities that explore astronomy, aviation, earth and space science. So while were closed and while our visitors are finding the best ways to learn at a distance, we’ll be posting some activities here with the goal of helping to enrich kids’ education at home.
Shine-Through Constellation Cards
Materials:
Scissors
A hole punch or a pin
Flashlight
Constellation cards from below printed out on cardstock, large enough to cover the light of your flashlight (we recommend saving the image and printing the file, rather than printing from this page)
Tape
Instructions:
1. Cut apart each card.
2. Using a hole punch, a sharp pencil, or a pin, make a hole where each star of the constellation is.
Kids, make sure you have an adult’s supervision while using sharp tools.
3. Tape the card to the front of the flashlight (or just hold it in front). Turn on the flashlight, pointing at a wall in a dark room.
Now, when you’re looking for a specific constellation in the sky, you’ll know what to look for! Read the captions on each card for a little information on each constellation.
Take this activity further:
Look at the sky and see if you can find these constellations.
Do some research: Find out more about your favorite constellation—learn about the story behind it, the stars that it’s comprised of, and any interesting objects within it.
Make your own constellation cards: We provided a few cards, but there are hundreds of constellations in the sky. See what other constellations you can find and make cards for those.
