At-Home STEM Activities: Earth, Moon, and Sun
Learn about orbits in our solar system by creating a simple, all-ages model.
Materials:
White cardstock (preferred) or paper
Crayons/markers/colored pencils
Scissors
Tape or glue
2 brad fasteners (no brads? you can improvise with a twist-tie garbage bag fastener!)
3 circular household objects of different sizes, to use as stencils (optional)
Process:
1) Draw three circles of various sizes. If desired, use round household objects as stencils.
The largest circle will be your SUN, the medium circle is the EARTH, and the smallest circle is the MOON.
2) Color & cut out your Earth, Moon, and Sun, and cut two additional strips of plain paper or cardstock. (bonus: decorate the two strips to look like the night sky)
3) Using tape or glue, adhere your Earth to the end of one strip of paper. Adhere your Moon to the end of the other strip.
bonus: for greater accuracy, trim the strip attached to the Moon, so that it is a little shorter than the one attached to the Earth
4) Put the Moon aside, and turn your attention to the Earth with a rectangular strip attached.
Poke a brad through the center of your Sun, then through the “free” end of the paper strip (opposite the Earth). Turn the whole thing over, and bend the arms of the brad outward to hold the two pieces of paper together.
If no brads are available, you may improvise with a twist-tie garbage bag fastener. Bend the twist-tie in half. Thread the two loose ends through the holes in the Sun and the strip of plain paper. Turn the whole thing over, and bend the two loose ends of the twist tie outward, similar to the “arms” of a brad. On the front side, bend the remaining segment of twist tie so that it cannot pull through the holes in the paper.
You’ll see in our photos that we used a brad to connect Earth to the Sun, but lacking a second brad we used a twist-tie to complete step 5 below.
Congratulations! You have made a model of the Earth orbiting around the Sun.
This model is not to scale—that is, there is a MUCH larger size difference between the real Sun and Earth than between the paper Sun and Earth in your model. In reality, the Sun is so big that you could fit 1.3 million Earths inside of it!
The Earth is constantly orbiting the Sun. “Orbiting” means moving around the outside of something in a circular pattern—so, the Earth moves around the outside of the Sun.
It takes 365 days for the Earth to complete one orbit. We call this time period a year.
5) Now turn your attention to the Moon with a rectangular strip attached. Use a second brad or wire fastener to connect the Moon to the Earth: poke the brad through the center of your Earth, then through the “free” end of the paper strip (opposite the Moon) to connect the two pieces.
Your model now shows the way the Moon orbits the Earth!
Just as Earth is constantly orbiting the Sun, the Moon is always orbiting the Earth. It takes 27.3 days for the Moon to travel all the way around the Earth and complete one orbit.
Remember that your model is not to scale: the sizes of the paper parts do not accurately represent sizes in reality. In your model, the distances between Earth & the Sun and between Earth & the Moon (the two strips of plain paper) may look equal or nearly equal. In reality, these distances are VERY different. The Moon is about 239 thousand miles away from the Earth, while the Sun is about 93 million miles away!
