Dancing Lights is a science-in-literacy program about the aurora. Students in grades 3-5 write and illustrate their perceptions, ideas, and facts pertaining to auroral science. Dancing Lights is converting to a national program in 2008. Previously, the program name was 'Colorado Lights.' We are pleased to present Dancing Lights to you and your students and sincerely hope you enjoy participating.

These standard-based lessons are meant to serve as guidelines for auroral studies and can be taught in conjunction with contest activites or independently.

Lesson packet (pdf)
Complete contest info (Colorado) (pdf)
Aurora photos
Colorado State Standards

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Three ways to introduce students to the aurora:

• The Aurora: What does it look like?
  (a tutorial for elementary school-aged children, from Lesson 1) (ppt)
  
  
• Student tutorial
  (UC Berkeley) (from Lesson 1)
  
• The Northern Lights movie
  flash: low | high
  quicktime: low | high
  

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(All are available on Amazon.com)

• Not Every Day an Aurora Borealis for Your Birthday: A Love Poem by Carl Sandburg $39.95
• Aurora: A Tale of the Northern Lights
  by Mindy Dwyer $8.95
• The Fiddler of the Northern Lights
  by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock $13.25
• Wonders of the World - The Northern Lights
  by Deborah Underwood $23.70
• Auroras: Light Shows in the Night Sky
  by Donna Walsh Shepherd $15.55
• Northern Lights
  by Dorothy Souza $19.93
• Science Matters: Northern Lights
  by David Whitefield $19.80
• The Night Rainbow
  by Barbara Juster Esbensen $6.78

Links open in a new window.

Space Weather Welcome (MetEd site, Free registration required)
Animated video of solar activity (courtesy of NASA)
Info on Aurora (David Stern, NASA)
Auroras are “mirror images” (University of Iowa)
Trees: Making a world of difference! (A similar science, art & literacy program by IGES)