Pastel Northen Lights

 This activity is creating the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights using oil pastels. We learned about different techniques for using oil pastels, to learn how to blend them. Blending with fingers, oil and using light vs hard pressure. We each got a piece of black construction to start creating our Northern Lights background. We used any colors we wanted. Brighter more vibrant colors worked the best. We drew the curvy lines with our fingers and blended them using the techniques we learned. Once we finished our sky we cut out our mountains and glued them onto our paper. I added snow to the tops of my mountains.

An extension I would do would involve a science experiment we will explore how the Northern Lights form by simulating Earth’s magnetic field. We will place a magnet under a sheet of paper and gently sprinkle iron filings on top. As we tap the paper the filings will align with the invisible magnetic field lines just like the way Earth’s magnetic field guides charged particles from the sun. Then we will shine a flashlight representing the solar wind toward the filings to show how these particles travel and interact with the field. By adding colored cellophane over the flashlight we can simulate the glowing lights that appear when the particles collide with gases in Earth’s atmosphere near the North and South Poles. This hands-on activity will help us understand the science behind the beautiful aurora we see in the night sky.