Facts About the Sun

✅ The middle of the solar system.

✅ It gives us light and keeps us warm.

DIY Sundial

We learnt that the Sun provides light and gives us sunrise and sunset. Let’s make a sundial, which can help you tell the time of day, to track the Sun’s movement between sunrise and sunset!

List of Equipment

• Pencil
• Clay
• Small rocks

Method

• Step 1: Place the clay on the floor and stick the pencil in it
• Step 2: Every hour, place a rock where the pencil’s shadow is
• Step 3: Do this every hour until sunset

Outcomes

You should notice every hour that the shadow of the pencil moves as the sun moves from sunrise to sunset! This sundial can help you tell the time on other days; for example, when the shadow of the pencil moves back to the beginning, it’s that time again!

✅ The Sun helps to keep us warm.

✅ Plants need the sun to help them grow.

✅ It is daytime when the Sun is up!

• Did you know the Sun is far away from us, although it looks so huge in the sky? Imagine this: it's about 93 million miles away!
• The light we see from the Sun takes 8 minutes to reach us on Earth.
• The Sun is so huge that if you could put Earth inside the Sun, you'd fit more than one million of them in the Sun.
• The Sun is our very own star, like all those other stars you can see at night.
• The Sun is a giant, glowing ball of gas. It doesn't have rocks or water like Earth.
• Without the Sun, we wouldn't have days, nights or even seasons. It's what makes our planet just perfect for all of us to live, play and grow.
• Did you know the Sun is a giant power station? It sends us more energy in an hour than the world uses in a year! People have learnt to capture this energy using solar panels. These panels turn sunlight into electricity without creating smoke or pollution. This kind of clean energy can light up our homes, power schools and even run cars. It’s like having a piece of the Sun's power in our own gardens, helping us take care of our planet by using less oil and gas, which can be harmful to the air and oceans.

About 93 million miles.

Yes, through solar panels.

A star.

About 8 minutes.

Yes, but the amount varies depending on their distance from the Sun.

It can damage our eyes because it's very bright.

A process by which plants make their food using sunlight.

Bursts of energy from the Sun that can affect Earth's magnetic field.

Energy from the Sun that can be converted into electricity.

The Sun actually emits white light, but it appears yellow to us because of Earth's atmosphere.