bringing science to life... Tintin and the Prisoners of the Sun
KS1 SC4 3a
In Tintin and the Prisoners of the Sun, several scientists become seriously ill after returning from Peru and when Tintin’s friend Professor Calculus is kidnapped to Peru, Tintin goes on a journey to try and find him, and solve the mystery.However on his journey he is wrongly imprisoned by the tribe of the Incas who worshipped the sun. He is sentenced to death by the leader of the Incas. But luckily, Tintin read in a newspaper that an eclipse was due on the day of his sentence.
Before being killed, Tintin said that if the Sun wasn’t happy with his sentence then to remove light. The eclipse occurred and no light was seen. The people of the Incas begged Tintin to bring back the sun. The eclipse passed and light was returned to the people. Tintin was released!
activities:
To create your own eclipse, place a large circle of white card up quite high on the wall of the classroom. This is the 'sun'. For extra sun effect cut out a few rays round it – like a corona in an eclipse. Now give each of the children the task of creating and cutting out a smaller circle.
All these circles (or 'moons') will be a different size.
Now put the children in pairs with their circles. One child watches in a direct line in front of the 'sun' in a place designated by you. (Earth – in other words, you could put an earth circle on the floor for them to stand on!)
Their pair holds up his or her circle, in front of the sun, between the sun and the watcher.
The watcher then tells the holder where to stand so that the sun is completely covered. (It might work better if they only use one eye!) Now tape the held up circle to the floor under the feet of the holder in exactly the right place. And swap the watcher and holder, and repeat so all the class gets a go. You should have all the circles stuck to the floor in order of size. This is how something small can get right in the way of something very very big and blot it out!
If you can use the hall for this activity you'll be able to create quit a large 'sun' and get a really nice spread of moons, but have a quick practice first.
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