Gravity in Year 4, light and shadows in Year 5, and the Earth and planets moving around the Sun in Year 6. Year 3 science in v9 has no space content.
Curriculum links last reviewed November 2026.
Real-time 3D globes of the Moon, Mars and the Sun.
explain that gravity pulls things down, and that it pulls less strongly on the Moon.
Open the Moon globe. Gravity on the Moon is about a sixth as strong as on the Earth. If you can jump 30 cm high in the playground, how high could you jump on the Moon? Measure each student's jump and work out their Moon jump.
Why you must never look straight at the Sun, and the safe ways to watch an eclipse.
show that light travels in straight lines and makes shadows, using a pinhole viewer to watch the Sun safely.
Make pinhole viewers from two pieces of card. Stand with your back to the Sun and let its image fall on the lower card. Then make hand shadows: why does a shadow have the same shape as the object? Never look at the Sun, even through the pinhole.
When the space station passes over your town, to the minute, and where to look.
explain that the space station shines because it reflects sunlight, not because of its own lights.
Find the next evening pass for your town. Why can we only see the station just after sunset or before sunrise? Model it: shine a torch on a foil ball in a dark room. The ball is the station, the torch is the Sun, and your eyes are on the dark ground.
A live map of the solar system, with every working deep-space spacecraft where it is today.
describe how the Earth and the other planets move around the Sun, and compare how long each takes.
Open the map and find the Earth and Jupiter. Jupiter takes about 12 years to go round the Sun once. Make an orbit model in the playground: one student is the Sun, others walk the planets' orbits. Who has the longest path?
A real-time 3D globe of Mars.
compare Mars's day and year with the Earth's, and explain which movement causes each.
Spin the Mars globe: Mars turns once in about 24 hours and 40 minutes, so its day is a little longer than ours. Its year is 687 Earth days. How old would you be in Mars years? Explain which movement makes a day and which makes a year.
Where the ISS is right now, and how fast it is going.
explain that the Earth's rotation causes day and night, and compare the crew's 90-minute day with ours.
Watch the station cross into night on the tracker. It goes round the Earth about 16 times a day, so its crew see about 16 sunrises. Use the worksheet to work out how many they see in a school week. Then look at the shape of the night side: why are our days longer in summer?
Every upcoming rocket launch, and when it lifts off.
explain how space missions depend on many countries working together and on earlier discoveries.
Find a launch to the space station on the schedule, or the next crewed launch. The station was built by the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada together. What did each partner add? Why do big science projects so often need many countries?
These are our suggestions for where each tool fits. Always preview a page before using it with a class: some tools show ads, these school pages do not.
Australian Curriculum codes are content descriptions, for example AC9S7U03. NSW syllabus outcomes are a second tag, for example SC4-OTU-01. Victoria and Western Australia have their own codes: the activities still fit.
© Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) 2010 to present, unless otherwise indicated. This material was downloaded from the Australian Curriculum website (Website) (accessed 4 November 2026) and was modified. The material is licensed under CC BY 4.0 Attribution 4.0 International Deed. Version updates are tracked in the ‘Curriculum version history’ section on the 'About the Australian Curriculum' page of the Australian Curriculum website. ACARA does not endorse any product that uses the Australian Curriculum or make any representations as to the quality of such products. Any product that uses material published on this website should not be taken to be affiliated with ACARA or have the sponsorship or approval of ACARA. It is up to each person to make their own assessment of the product, taking into account matters including, but not limited to, the version number and the degree to which the materials align with the content descriptions and achievement standards (where relevant). Where there is a claim of alignment, it is important to check that the materials align with the content descriptions and achievement standards (endorsed by all education Ministers), not the elaborations (examples provided by ACARA).
NSW syllabus outcome codes © NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) for and on behalf of the Crown in right of the State of New South Wales. The cards use the codes only, with our own descriptions.
Know a better fit for your class, or a topic we have missed? Tell us and we will add it.
Share this page with one link: orbitalradar.com/schools/au/years-3-6
Orbital Radar. (2026, November 4). Years 3 to 6: Solar System and Light. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://orbitalradar.com/schools/au/years-3-6
“Years 3 to 6: Solar System and Light.” Orbital Radar, 4 Nov. 2026, orbitalradar.com/schools/au/years-3-6. Accessed 5 Nov. 2026.
Orbital Radar (2026) Years 3 to 6: Solar System and Light. Available at: https://orbitalradar.com/schools/au/years-3-6 (Accessed: 5 November 2026).
Orbital Radar. “Years 3 to 6: Solar System and Light.” Last modified November 4, 2026. https://orbitalradar.com/schools/au/years-3-6.
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author = {{Orbital Radar}},
title = {Years 3 to 6: Solar System and Light},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
howpublished = {\url{https://orbitalradar.com/schools/au/years-3-6}},
url = {https://orbitalradar.com/schools/au/years-3-6},
urldate = {2026-11-05},
note = {Accessed 2026-11-05}
}TY - ELEC AU - Orbital Radar, TI - Years 3 to 6: Solar System and Light PY - 2026 DA - 2026/11/04 PB - Orbital Radar UR - https://orbitalradar.com/schools/au/years-3-6 Y2 - 2026/11/05 LA - en-AU ER -
Live figures change, so keep the date you accessed the page. How to cite Orbital Radar