You may have realized that the sun gives off heat. It feels so good to feel the warm sun on our skin when we're cold! The sun has an amazing amount of heat and even though we only get a small amount of that heat, it's just the right amount for us. You also may have realized how much light it provides us. Without the sun, we couldn't see. What about the moon? The moon doesn't have any light of its own. All of the light we see is really sunlight that is reflected or bounced off our moon.

Where does the energy to build, light, and heat our houses and schools come from? The sun has actually created almost all of the energy we use today. If we want to find more energy, we can look back to the sun itself. All the light and heat we feel is energy that we might be able to use. How much energy could the sun give us? How much would this energy cost us? How can we capture the energy and use it for our needs? This lesson has five experiments that will begin to answer these questions. The activities are:

* Pizza box solar heater
* Solar resource simulator
* Measuring solar radiation
* Length of day around the world
* Capture solar energy