"Why Does the Sun Shine?"

Had a request to post the lyrics.


The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where Hydrogen is built into Helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees

The sun is hot, the sun is not
A place where we could live
But here on Earth there'd be no life
Without the light it gives

We need its light, we need its heat
The sun light that we seek
The sun light comes from our own sun's
Atomic energy

The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where Hydrogen is built into Helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees

The sun is hot...

The sun is so hot that everything on it is a gas
Aluminum, Copper, Iron, and many others

The sun is large...

If the sun were hollow, a million Earth's would fit inside
And yet, it is only a middle size star

The sun is far away...

About 93,000,000 miles away
And that's why it looks so small

But even when it's out of sight
The sun shines night and day

We need its heat, we need its light
The sun light that we seek
The sun light comes from our own sun's
Atomic energy

Scientists have found that the sun is a huge atom smashing machine
The heat and light of the sun are caused by nuclear reactions between
Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Carbon, and Helium

The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where Hydrogen is built into Helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees

Virtual Earthquake

For schools with easy access to computer labs or with 1-1 laptop initiatives, try this "Virtual Earthquake" activity. Students measure s-p lag times, estimate the energy of the earthquake using a nomogram, 'draw' the circles for triangulation, and practice using longitude & latitude measurements.

Enjoy!

What's the point?

As if we all need one more thing to do, right?

But we're going pretty fast, and a lot of teaching ideas are being described with no time to record them for posterity.

Here's a spot for you to - pretty please! - summarize your idea so the rest of us can use it. You can do so by making your own post (get your email to me so I can add you as an author here) or in the comments section of any post. I'll organize this on a day-by-day basis.

It's normal to be thinking "but my ideas aren't that great!" Oh, yes they are! Sure, it takes guts to share, but that's how we'll all improve.

Here we go!