The kids and I are having so much fun with Exploring Creation through Astronomy by Apologia. After our first lesson and project with Astronomy, we have now moved on to the Sun.
The chapter on the sun has been split up into two sections. The first sections talks about what the sun is, how far away it is from the earth and how hot the sun is. Did you know the sun is almost 93 million miles from the earth and is about 10,000 degrees on the outside and millions of degrees on the inside! Wow!
It also goes into detail about sunspots and solar flares and how they affect the earth. Did you know that the solar flares have so much energy that when it is thrown towards the earth that people in the far north (like Alaska) and far south can see colorful lights light up the sky? Those lights are called the auroras! I didn’t know that until I read this lesson!
The sunspots on the sun are also cooler than the rest of the sun. Scientists actually believe that the sunspots affect the weather on the earth.
The first things the kids had to do was draw a picture of the sun with sunspots and solar flares. I think the kids did a great job on them. I am considering framing them and hanging them up!
The next project they kids got to do was melting chocolate with a magnifying glass. The point was to focus the heat with a magnifying glass to a certain spot to see if it would melt.
Samuel and Sarah taking a turn with the magnifying glass.
By putting the magnifying glass either close to the chocolate or farther away from chocolate would depend on how concentrated the heat was when it hit the chocolate.
Look! We have a flame and smoke!
The kids got some chocolate (that I had previously in the freezer) and put it on a plate. They then took turns holding the magnifying glass really close or far away from the chocolate.
Claire getting a turn holding the magnifying glass.
Depending on the distance of the magnifying glass to the chocolate, would depend on how soon it took the chocolate to melt. I think next time I will actually time it to see how long it would be before the chocolate started melting and smoking from the heat. It would be neat to see the difference in the distance to the amount of time it took.
Chocolate with burnt holes from the magnifying glass.
We really enjoyed this yummy project learning about how intense the heat from the sun can be. We are looking forward to the next projects in the astronomy book!
Have you ever tried this project before? What were your results? What science project have you done lately? Please share with me in the comments! I would love to hear about it!
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We’re doing the same thing this year! We passed that activity, but we’ll come back to it this week, I hope. My kids are waiting for me to a) buy chocolate and b) remember to do it while the sun is out. Oops.
I know the feeling about waiting for the sun to come out! I actually stopped by the grocery store that morning when I saw it was going to be a sunny day. Your kids will have a wonderful time melting chocolate and you will have a wonderful time eating the leftovers! We are loving the Astronomy book. What lesson are you on?
Yummy! We had to buy extras cuz the teacher love chocolate!
Michelle, I bought extra chocolate as well, knowing how much the teacher loves chocolate here! This was definitely a yummy and fun experiment! 🙂
Ooooo! I can’t wait for that lesson! We start Apologia Astronomy soon and will start The Sun chapters around Thanksgiving.
You and the kids will have a lot of fun with this book! Especially when you are able to enjoy the leftover chocolate! LOL 🙂
Hmph, I could have sworn I’d already commented, but apparently not. In my mind I did.
Or you could just leave it outside in the sun for a minute in Texas summer, or fall……. We got a cold snap and it’s 50 here now.
Yes, you could definitely leave it out in the sun in Texas and it would melt in the matter of minutes. 🙂 However, for my kids, it is a lot more fun trying to catch things on fire with the magnifying glass! LOL
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