Auroras: Paintings in the Sky

Learning Objectives

Learning goals of lesson segments

What do auroras look like?

students should be able to:

• Recognize and describe the appearance of auroras from the ground.
• luminous
• colors
• appears to move
• duration

What do auroras look like from space?

students should be able to:

• Recognize and describe the appearance of auroras from space.
• rings around both magnetic poles
• day side/night side
• altitude
• size range of auroral rings

What makes them happen?

students should be able to:

• Describe qualitatively what causes auroras.
• arrangement of Earth's dipole magnetic field
• Charged particles trapped and accellerated
• Collisions with atmospheric molecules create light
• Charged particles come from solar wind

Where can you see them?

students should be able to:

• Describe how aurora locations are related to solar activity and the Earth's magnetic field.
• Describe why auroras are different colors.
• Use the WWW to find information on auroral phenomena and research.

Back to "Auroras" summary

Ties to National Science Education Standards

1997 The Regents of the University of California Mail questions or comments to outreach@cea.berkeley.edu