This activity is designed to replicate Eratosthenes' experiment in which he measured the circumference of the Earth. Students at two different schools will work in small groups to take accurate measurements at a specific time and use their knowledge of geometry and trigonometry to determine the measure of an angle. They will also use significant digits in their reports, calculate percent error, and ... Full description.

In this activity students build a device to capture an outline of the Sun and use geometry to determine its diameter. They will then calculate the percent difference between their value and the accepted diameter of the sun. Full description.

This site highlights the teenage years of George Washington, and encourages character traits such as responsibility, self-control, and trustworthiness. There are science lesson plans on erosion and a math lesson plan on computing the area of different shapes. A section on erosion contains an historical letter written by George Washington in which he describes the erosion of his fields, and photographs ... Full description.

The Fermilab Flora and Fauna Exhibit provides information on wildlife phenomena commonly found at Fermilab, in Illinois, such as: bird nests, beavers, buffalo, Canada geese, deer, fungi, lichens, poison ivy, insects (including prairie insects in winter), red-tailed hawks, and woodchucks. A section on math patterns in nature explains what Fibonacci sequences, golden numbers and angles, and fractals ... Full description.

This student activity demonstrates how foraminifera can be used to analyze climate. It contains background information and the classroom activity, which includes instructions and the required charts and graphs. Full description.

In this lesson students explore Kepler's law and planetary orbits. This is the fifth in a series of interactive student lessons from the Martian Sun Times. Full description.

This introduction to coordinates on a sphere explains how latitude and longitude define locations on Earth, and similarly, how declination and right ascension define locations on the celestial sphere. The lesson also introduces systems of time-keeping, e.g. local solar time, time zones, universal time and the International Date Line. The objectives are for the student to know how any location on Earth ... Full description.

This lesson covers basic methods for finding one's position on Earth. Latitude can be deduced from the height above the horizon of the pole star or of the noontime Sun, while longitude requires an accurate clock giving universal time. The student will understand how finding one's local longitude requires comparing local time with universal time (UT), which may be obtained from an accurate clock, possibly ... Full description.

This introduction to the labeling of points on a plane by their Cartesian coordinates can optionally be extended to coordinates in 3-dimensional space, to plane polar coordinates and to 3-dimensional polar coordinates. Students should learn to use Cartesian coordinates (x,y) for defining the position of a point in two dimensions and to use Cartesian coordinates (x,y,z) in 3-dimensional space and learn ... Full description.

This lesson provides an overview of solar and lunar calendars, their history and lore and also, of the day and the month, and their relations to the rotation period of the Earth and the orbital period of the Moon. Students learn the differences between a solar day, sidereal day and mean solar day, and what each is used for as well as the differences between the solar year and the Julian and Gregorian ... Full description.