Earth and space
Earth and space projects for class 11 and 12: 17 ideas.
Each project below opens to its own page with what it shows, the science behind it, the materials, safety, step-by-step instructions, what you should see and viva questions. Many can be made from things at home; where a kit helps, the page links one.
Other subjects for class 11 and 12: Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Maths, Electronics and robotics, Environment, Computing and coding.
IoT weather station
Temperature, humidity and pressure sensors take readings every few minutes, and a Wi-Fi board sends them to a web dashboard, building up a record of the local weather.
Measuring the dew point with a shiny can and ice
The dew point is the temperature at which air becomes saturated and water starts to condense. Cooling a shiny can slowly until it mists over gives the dew point, and from dew point and air temperature the relative humidity can be read from a table.
Rotating planisphere star finder for your latitude
A planisphere is a star map on a dial with a window shaped for one latitude. Turning the dial to the date and time shows exactly which stars are above the horizon, which demonstrates how the sky shifts through the night and through the year.
Why the monsoon blows: sand versus water heating and cooling test
Land heats and cools much faster than water. In summer the hot Indian land has low pressure and air flows in from the cooler sea, carrying moisture; in winter the land is colder and the flow reverses. Measuring sand and water under the same sun shows the difference that drives the monsoon.
Measuring the Earth’s circumference from shadows in two cities
Eratosthenes found the size of the Earth by comparing noon shadows at two places a known distance apart. You can repeat it with a friendly school in another city to find the Earth’s circumference.
Find your latitude with a straw, a protractor and the Pole Star
The height of the Pole Star above the horizon is nearly equal to your latitude in the northern hemisphere. A homemade angle measurer can show your place on Earth.
Noon shadow tip marked every week: the analemma figure-eight
If you mark the tip of a stick’s shadow at the same clock time each week, the marks form a long thin figure-eight called the analemma. It combines the Earth’s tilted axis with its elliptical orbit.
Diameter of the Sun from a pinhole image on a card
The Sun’s image through a small hole is a circle whose size depends on the distance to the screen. Using similar triangles with the Sun’s distance gives its real diameter, about 1.4 million km.
Kepler’s third law: plotting T squared against a cubed for the planets
The square of a planet’s orbital period is proportional to the cube of its average distance from the Sun. Plotting real data for the six naked-eye planets gives a straight line of slope 1 when the units are years and astronomical units.
Parallax: measuring distance to a tree with a thumb and your eyes
A nearby object appears to shift against a far background when you view it from two places. Measuring the shift and the baseline gives its distance, the same method astronomers use for nearby stars.
Counting stars in a tube: a light pollution survey of your town
The number of stars you can see falls when street lights and glare brighten the sky. Counting stars in a fixed patch of sky at different places gives a simple measure of light pollution.
Capillary rise of water in sand, silt and clay columns
Water climbs up through the tiny gaps between soil grains. Fine clay lifts water highest but slowly, and coarse sand lifts it only a little but fast, which matters for how crops reach water.
Sand tank with two wells: drawdown and well interference
Pumping water from a well lowers the water table around it in a cone shape. Two close wells lower each other’s water, which is why borewells too near each other fail in summer.
Equinox noon shadow: finding your latitude with a vertical stick
On an equinox the Sun is directly over the equator at noon. The angle of the Sun above the horizon at your place is then 90 degrees minus your latitude, so a shadow measurement gives your latitude within a degree or two.
Night-sky clock that tells time from the Saptarishi stars
The Saptarishi (Great Bear) pattern turns around the Pole Star once in about 24 hours, like a giant clock hand. A simple two-disc instrument called a nocturnal can use it to tell the time at night.
Measuring the Moon’s angular size with a coin and a metre ruler
An object’s apparent size depends on its distance. A coin held at arm’s length that just covers the Moon gives the Moon’s angular size, about half a degree, and then its real diameter can be estimated.
Eratosthenes’ method: estimating Earth’s size from two cities’ shadows
Two sticks in two cities, measured at noon on the same day, give different shadow angles. The difference, together with the distance between the cities, gives the circumference of Earth.