NASA: The Difference Between Flares and CMEsDo your students struggle to get the difference between solar flares and coronal mass ejections? They're not alone. Check out this video-based tutorial from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. In lay language, it explains that both phenomena involve gigantic explosions of energy. But they emit different things, they travel differently, and have different effects on planets they encounter in our solar system.
Space Weather Center: Living With a StarThis interactive collection has a sweet surprise. In addition to its free tutorials on solar structure, solar phenomena, and dynamic processes such as flares and CMEs, there are six computer games to help kids hone their understanding. The games include:
1) The Great Escape -- Follow a solar maze to get from the Sun's fusion core to its surface.
2) Our Place in Space -- Explore the Milky Way and try to find the Sun.
3) Near & Far -- Rank objects in order from closest-to-farthest from you.
4) Small and Large -- Place objects in order from largest-to-smallest.
5) Wrath of Ra -- Try to hit Earth by launching particles off the Sun. Can you figure out how to make an aurora?
6) Solar Vision -- See if you can find objects that can only be seen through a certain filter.
NOTE* The computer games all run in an app called "Ruffle", a Flash Player emulator written in the Rust programming language. Ruffle runs on all modern operating systems as a standalone application, and on all modern browsers through the use of WebAssembly.
1) The Great Escape -- Follow a solar maze to get from the Sun's fusion core to its surface.
2) Our Place in Space -- Explore the Milky Way and try to find the Sun.
3) Near & Far -- Rank objects in order from closest-to-farthest from you.
4) Small and Large -- Place objects in order from largest-to-smallest.
5) Wrath of Ra -- Try to hit Earth by launching particles off the Sun. Can you figure out how to make an aurora?
6) Solar Vision -- See if you can find objects that can only be seen through a certain filter.
NOTE* The computer games all run in an app called "Ruffle", a Flash Player emulator written in the Rust programming language. Ruffle runs on all modern operating systems as a standalone application, and on all modern browsers through the use of WebAssembly.
The Magnetic Sun: Power PointHere's a highly visual, easily-understood set of slides to teach about the Sun's structure and scale, its magnetic field, sunspots and the Solar Cycle, and behavior of ionized plasma loops on its turbulent surface. Students will enjoy the images of the Sun's corona in five different wavelengths of the EM spectrum! The hottest spots of the corona are seen best in x-ray images, while the clearest view of individual sunspots is seen (by human eyes) in the visible light images. Don't miss Slide 10 to see an excellent diagram of magnetic field lines around sunspots. This resource was developed by the Space Sciences Laboratory at UC-Berkeley.
Space Weather Center: Amazing PlasmasThis page features an interactive tutorial on plasma: its nature as a state of matter, uses of plasmas on Earth, and a brief introduction to the role of plasma in the universe. It was developed for secondary grades and could be useful as a building block for high school students who are struggling with the curriculum. Be aware that the Flash version of the "Matter Sorter" has been retired, but the "Magneto Bowling" game is functional.