Earth and space
Earth and space projects for class 6 to 8: 53 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 6 to 8: Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Maths, Electronics and robotics, Environment, Computing and coding.
Solar system model
The eight planets in order from the Sun, and how much bigger the giant planets are than Earth. Real distances are far too large to show to scale, so say so on your label.
Water cycle in a bowl
Warm water evaporates, the vapour condenses into drops on the cold cover, and the drops fall back like rain: the water cycle in miniature.
Phases of the moon model
Half of the Moon is always lit by the Sun. As the Moon travels round the Earth we see different amounts of that lit half, which gives the phases. They are not caused by the Earth’s shadow.
Rain gauge
Rainfall is measured as the depth of water that would collect on flat ground, in millimetres. A straight-sided container gives a fair reading.
Sundial
As the Earth turns, the Sun appears to move across the sky and the pointer’s shadow moves with it. For better readings, tilt the pointer towards the north at an angle equal to your latitude (about 28 to 29 degrees in Delhi).
Seismograph model
A heavy hanging pen tends to stay still (inertia) while the box and paper shake beneath it, so the pen draws the shaking as a wiggly line.
Layers of the Earth model
The Earth has a thin rocky crust, a thick hot mantle, a liquid outer core and a solid inner core.
Why we have seasons
The Earth’s axis is tilted by about 23.5 degrees. As the Earth goes round the Sun, each half spends part of the year tilted towards the Sun, with stronger and longer sunlight: that is its summer. Seasons are not caused by the Earth’s distance from the Sun.
Anemometer and wind vane
Wind pushes the cups round, and the faster the wind the more turns per minute. The wind vane points into the wind and shows the direction it is blowing from.
Balloon-and-bottle barometer with a two-week weather log
Air pressure changes from day to day. When the outside pressure rises it presses the balloon skin inwards and the straw pointer tips up; when pressure falls before rain, the pointer tips down.
Hair hygrometer that measures humidity with a single strand
Human hair gets slightly longer when the air is humid and shorter when it is dry. A long hair pulling on a pointer turns this tiny change into a visible movement, which is how real hair hygrometers worked for two centuries.
Bottle wind vane on a compass rose that logs wind direction
A wind vane turns until its large tail is pushed downwind, so the small arrow head points into the wind. Winds are named by the direction they come from, and the direction often changes before the weather does.
Cloud in a squeezed bottle with warm water and a wisp of smoke
Clouds form when moist air expands and cools, and water vapour condenses on tiny particles. Squeezing the bottle warms and clears the air; letting go expands and cools it so a cloud appears, but only when smoke particles are present to condense on.
Cut-away model of a composite volcano with magma chamber and vents
A composite volcano is built from alternating layers of hardened lava and ash. Magma rises from a chamber deep below through a central pipe and sometimes side vents, and the cut-away shows how the inside connects to the crater at the top.
Hand-driven shake table that tests which tower survives an earthquake
Earthquake waves shake the ground sideways. A simple shake table shows that wide-based, cross-braced and lighter-topped buildings stay up longer than tall, narrow, top-heavy ones, which is why real buildings in earthquake zones use bracing and a low centre of mass.
Three plate boundaries acted out with biscuits on a layer of jam
The Earth's crust is broken into plates that float on the soft upper mantle. Pushing two biscuits apart, together, or sideways shows how ridges, mountains and faults form at the three kinds of plate boundary.
Rock cycle in a foil cup using crayon shavings
Crayon shavings pressed together act like sediment turning into sedimentary rock, pressed and warmed they become metamorphic rock, and melted and cooled they become igneous rock. The same changes, with real heat and pressure over millions of years, make up the rock cycle.
Scratch test kit that ranks local rocks on the Mohs hardness scale
A harder material scratches a softer one. Using a fingernail, a copper coin, a steel nail and a piece of glass as reference points, any rock or mineral can be placed on the Mohs hardness scale from 1 to 10.
Jar settling test that finds the sand, silt and clay in garden soil
Soil is a mixture of sand, silt and clay particles of different sizes. Shaken in water, the heavy sand sinks in a minute, silt in a few hours and clay over days, so the layers in the jar show the soil's texture.
Funnel race that times how fast water drains through four soils
Water passes through soils at very different rates. Sand lets water through in seconds, clay holds it for a long time, and the result decides where groundwater forms, where floods happen and which crops grow.
Solar eclipse model that shows the umbra and penumbra on a globe
A solar eclipse happens when the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth and its shadow falls on the Earth. The dark inner shadow (umbra) covers only a small patch where the eclipse is total, and the lighter outer shadow (penumbra) covers a wide area that sees a partial eclipse.
Lunar eclipse model that explains why the Moon turns red
A lunar eclipse happens at full moon when the Earth moves between the Sun and the Moon and the Moon passes through the Earth's shadow. The Moon does not go fully black because the Earth's atmosphere bends red sunlight into the shadow.
Paper-cup constellation projector for seven Indian sky patterns
Stars seem to form patterns called constellations. Cups with pinholes in the right pattern throw those patterns onto a dark wall, so a child learns to recognise Orion, the Great Bear, Cassiopeia and others before finding them in the real sky.
Moon and tides model with two bulges and a spinning Earth
The Moon's gravity pulls the oceans into a bulge on the side facing it and a second bulge on the opposite side. As the Earth turns under the two bulges, most coasts see two high tides and two low tides a day.
Solar system distances rolled out on a toilet paper strip
The planets are not evenly spaced. On a scale where the Sun to Neptune is 100 sheets of toilet paper, the four rocky planets all fit inside the first 5 sheets and the gaps between the outer planets grow huge, something no picture in a textbook can show.
Shadow stick that finds true north and the real local noon
A vertical stick's shadow is longest at sunrise, shrinks until the Sun is highest, then grows again. The shortest shadow points true north from anywhere in India, and the time it happens is local solar noon, which is usually not 12 o'clock by the clock.
Torch on a grid showing why slanting sunlight gives cooler seasons
The same beam of light spread over a larger area heats each square less. Sunlight arrives at a slant in winter and spreads thin, which is the main reason winter is cold, not the small change in distance from the Sun.
Globe with painted climate zone bands and India's climates marked
The Earth has broad climate zones: the tropical zone between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, the temperate zones up to the polar circles, and the polar zones. The Tropic of Cancer runs through the middle of India, so the country spans tropical and sub-tropical climates with mountains that add cold zones.
Stream table in a tray that grows river meanders and sandbars
A river flowing over loose sediment erodes the outside of each bend, where water moves fastest, and deposits sand on the inside, where it is slow. Over time the bends grow into meanders and may be cut off to leave oxbow lakes, as happens on the Ganga plain.
Growing a river delta where muddy water meets a still "sea"
When a river reaches the sea it slows down suddenly and drops the sediment it was carrying. The sediment builds a fan of land called a delta that splits the river into many channels, which is how the Ganga-Brahmaputra and Godavari deltas formed.
Aquifer in a jar with a working well and a pollution test
Groundwater is not an underground lake but water filling the spaces between grains of sand and gravel. A straw well draws it out, rain refills it from above, and anything spilled on the surface can reach the well, showing why wells go dry and why they get polluted.
Moon crater tray that tests how drop height changes crater size
Craters on the Moon were made by rocks hitting its surface. Dropping marbles into flour from different heights shows that faster impacts make wider craters with longer rays, and that the Moon keeps its craters because it has no air, water or weather to wear them away.
Thermocol ball model of the Earth with crust, mantle and core
The Earth is made of layers: a thin crust, a thick mantle, a liquid outer core and a solid inner core. The cut-away shows their relative thickness.
Paper-mache globe with latitude and longitude lines
The globe shows how the Earth is a sphere, with latitudes parallel to the equator and longitudes running pole to pole. A place can be located by its two numbers.
Cloth windsock that shows wind direction and strength
A windsock points away from the wind and lifts higher as the wind gets stronger. It is used at airports and can be compared with a Beaufort chart.
Equatorial sundial from a paper plate tilted to your latitude
A sundial tells time by the shadow of a pointer that is parallel to the Earth’s axis. The shadow moves 15 degrees every hour because the Earth turns 360 degrees in 24 hours.
Hand-crank orrery with bottle-cap planets that orbit at different speeds
Planets nearer the Sun take less time to go round it. The crank turns four arms at different rates so you can see Mercury race ahead of Earth.
Shoebox moon phases viewer with a foam ball and a torch
The Moon always has one half lit by the Sun, but we see different amounts of it as it moves round the Earth. The box shows each phase from the viewer’s eye.
Crumpled paper watershed that traces rain and pollution to the river
A watershed is the land that drains to one river. Spraying water on a crumpled sheet shows ridges, valleys and how water, and anything on the ground, ends up in the stream.
Solar system to scale on a school field, planet by planet
When distances between planets are drawn to the same scale as their sizes, space turns out to be almost entirely empty. Walking from the Sun to Neptune makes this gap between worlds felt in your legs.
Moon diary: sketching the Moon’s shape and rise time for 30 nights
The Moon’s lit shape changes in a steady cycle of about 29.5 days, and it rises roughly 50 minutes later each night. Your own sketches show this pattern better than any picture in a book.
Star trail sketches that show the Earth turning
Stars appear to turn around the Pole Star because Earth spins on its axis once a day. Sketches made hours apart reveal arcs, and the amount of turning matches about 15 degrees an hour.
Stretched cloth gravity well with marbles in orbit
A heavy ball on a stretched cloth makes a dip, and small marbles rolled nearby curve round it and spiral in. This is a simple analogy for how a massive object like the Sun pulls on planets and why orbits slowly lose energy to friction.
ISRO missions timeline strip from Aryabhata to Gaganyaan
India’s space journey took place in steps, from a first satellite in 1975 to Moon and Mars missions and crewed spaceflight plans. A scaled timeline shows how fast the steps came and what each learnt.
Globe and torch model of sunrise time gaps across India
India uses one standard time, but the Sun rises about two hours earlier in Arunachal Pradesh than in Gujarat. A globe and torch show why places east and west of each other have different local times.
Pinhole projector for watching a partial solar eclipse safely
A tiny hole makes an upside-down image of the Sun on a screen. During a partial eclipse the image shows a bite taken out of the disc, so you can watch without looking at the Sun.
Why we see one face of the Moon: a walk-around model with a friend
The Moon turns once on its axis in the same time it takes to go once round Earth, so the same side always faces us. You can act this out with two people to feel why.
Comet model whose tail always points away from the Sun
A comet’s tail always points away from the Sun, even when the comet is moving away. The solar wind and light push the dust and gas outwards, so the tail leads when the comet is going away.
Mars rover model with rocker-bogie suspension from cardboard
A rocker-bogie suspension lets a six-wheeled rover climb over rocks twice the wheel size without tipping. The body stays almost level because the arms pivot.
Cloud watching sketch book with cloud shapes
Clouds come in different shapes and heights, and each kind tells us something about the weather coming.
Paper windsock that shows wind strength and direction
A windsock blows out like a flag in the wind. It points away from the wind direction and rises higher when the wind is stronger.
Garden treasure hunt using north, south, east and west
Directions are named by the Sun and the compass. We find east where the Sun rises, then work out north, south and west.
Evaporation race: wet cloth in sun, shade and wind
Water dries by evaporation, turning into invisible vapour. Heat and wind make this happen faster.