The Sun

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

The sun is a star made up of gas all the way through.

It's the closest star to the earth, and even though it is 109 times bigger than the earth, our sun is considered a dwarf star, which means it is much smaller than many other stars in the universe!

In our solar system, though, the sun is our largest thing. It takes up 98% of all the mass in our solar system! Look at this picture to see how huge the sun is compared to the earth.

Print out the Sun Graphic Organizer, found under Downloadable Resources in the right-hand sidebar. Record your favorite facts about the sun throughout this lesson to remember what you learn.

Watch the video below to hear a song about the sun.

Unlike the earth, the sun has no hard surface. Burning hydrogen and helium gives the sun temperatures hot enough to warm the planets (like earth) that orbit it millions and even billions of miles away!

The sun's giant size gives it a huge gravitational pull, which is why all the planets can orbit the sun.

The sun is far away from the earth. It is so far that it takes 8 minutes for light to get from the sun to the earth!

Think about when you turn a light on in your room. It instantly lights up! Light from the sun, on the other hand, takes 8 minutes to travel all the way here and light up our planet!

Humans have used the sun for many things throughout civilization! The sun has a consistent pattern, and humans recognized this long ago. Since the sun rises and sets in the same place, it has been used for everything from keeping time to mapping and directions.

By studying the position of the sun in the sky, ancient astronomers discovered that a year is about 365 days long, and we still use that information today in our calendars!

The sun is important for the earth because it gives us light, heat, seasons, stable measurements of time, and so much more! We could not survive without the sun!

Keep going in the Got It? section!