Earth and space
Earth and space projects for class 9 and 10: 36 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 9 and 10: Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Maths, Electronics and robotics, Environment, Computing and coding.
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.
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.
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.
Why volcanoes have different shapes: a lava thickness test
Runny lava spreads far and builds wide, low shield volcanoes; thick, sticky lava piles up near the vent and builds steep cones. Pouring liquids of different viscosity through a hole in a tray shows the two shapes forming.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.