The Herschel Team has developed a number of space and astronomy activities for use in schools, all related in some way to the Herschel Space Observatory. The UK Herschel Team can offer these activities to schools nationwide. The lessons are available for a range of ages, and use information and images from this amazing satellite, currently operating 1.5million km from Earth. Activities range from the design of the Herschel Telescope, to the advantages of using light at a range of wavelengths, to the impact that space dust can have here on Earth.
Click here for more information and to see a list of the classroom activities available.
Online activities
A range of online activities and games linked to Herschel which can be run in the browser. Click here for more information on the online activities.
Cut-out models
Some cut-out models of the Herschel spacecraft are available to download, print out and make yourself. You can either colour them in yourself, or print the version with colours already added.
Click here for more information and to see the models currently available.
Other Educational Resources
Here are some pointers to a few selected useful educational resources:
Chromoscope
This multiwavelength view of the sky allows the full sky to be viewed a a number of wavelengths. What’s more, you can fade between the wavelengths to compare them. There is a search facility so you can find where objects are in the sky, and there’s a blog with some more information. The tool simply runs in a web browser (Google Chrome has been found to be the fastest), and is downloadable so that it can be run on a stand-alone machine in a classroom. It doesn’t require an Internet connection to work, apart from the Search facility.
Cool Cosmos
This site, run by the NASA’s Infrared Processing and Analysis Centre and the Spitzer Science Centre, has excellent information about astronomy at a range of wavelengths. There are images of a large number of objects at a range of wavelengths, and crucially some accompanying information. It also has lesson plans and classroom activities – though they may be targeted more at the US curriculum.
Las Cumbres Observatory: Education
A range of education resources from the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope (LCO). Examples are:
- Star in a Box: exploring the life cycles of stars with an interactive web-tool
- Agent Exoplanet: using real data to work out the properties of planets around other stars.