BEST: Kinetic City is an excellent website with great resources for teachers. It has something for all age groups. There are some brilliant games on here, which are very engaging and entertaining. I think this would get a student’s attention and also engage their imagination and interest them in astronomy. As well as the games, there were lessons (probably best suited to older students) about electric circuits and various other topics.
The Scale of the Universe is a very interesting website (although slow to load). It allows the user to compare the sizes of things, from the minute to the whole universe itself. Some of the information on the page can be misunderstood or misinterpreted, so read it carefully! The activity might not interest younger readers, but it would be excellent for second-level students.
Videojug is a very interesting website. It is like youtube, but already sorted into “Cool Experiments.” Teachers could use this website as inspiration for a class. However, this site is not aimed solely at teachers. People of all ages can find experiments well worth watching. There are many hours worth of exciting, jaw-dropping and mind-boggling videos. Look for the levitating spinning top!
Shape It Up is a Geology game where you try to figure out what natural processes occurred in the picture and over what time frame. This is interesting when you start out, but quickly becomes repetitive, as the same pictures are recycled quite frequently, but it is still worth a look – for about 5 to 10 minutes.
Zap is a game which is a little off-topic for astronomy, but could be useful in the classroom anyway. It is a game in which your reactions are tested and the difference in the speed of your reactions between visual and aural stimulus is demonstrated.
Reviewed and tested by Andrew Crowley