Hands-on activities encourage students to acquire new skills and apply new ones. Experimental and imaginative activities allow students to create hypotheses and test them, providing opportunities for learning critical thinking and social skills in a group setting. Students can also practice extrapolating from existing knowledge, synthesizing information and reporting results. Experiential learning through activities also encourages students to bring theoretical knowledge into the physical world and see relationships and connections between elements.
Numerous experiments allow students of all ages to learn about the cosmos. Simple activities involving classroom and household materials such as aluminum foil and an overhead projector allow students to explore the spectrum or observe ultraviolet light. Students can make a basic telescope or create a flip book that depicts the motion of a comet. More advanced classes can track star motion or observe the motion of the moon for a given month. Group activities such as these encourage communication, skill application and the acquisition of new knowledge.
A simple way to help students learn about the cosmos involves making models of celestial objects. Using papier-mâché or other materials, students can create a model solar system or comet or model the Milky Way from pinpricks in dark construction paper. Modeling clay and other materials allow students to make models of planets or moons and color them appropriately. Modeling activities encourage students to work collaboratively, gather information and report on their findings.
Classroom activities on the cosmos also encourage imagination, speculation and synthesis of information. Students can work together to plan a community on Mars or the Moon or "create" an alien life form able to survive on Neptune. Other activities might involve planning a greeting to an alien species or building a new solar system. Activities like these allow students to use existing knowledge for new outcomes, support collaborative learning and create opportunities to think holistically.