Oil Pastel Aurora Borealis

Description: The students learned about the aurora borealis and how it forms. The students made their own with oil pastel. First, you need to cut out your mountains/landscape to gauge where you will need to make your waves of light. Trace your landscape onto another black sheet of paper. Then, crack open the oil pastels and pick out the blues, greens, purples, and white. Because the paper is so dark I recommend using white to make your wavy lines first so that when you layer another color on top, it pops more. After drawing wavy lines, using medium pressure, draw on top with your blue, green, or purple. This is the messy part. With your finger or Q-tip, lightly smudge the pastel in an upwards motion. Careful not to overbend or it will become streaky like my purple in the top left corner. Feel free to put down more color to make it more vibrant. After everything is smudged, move back to your landscape. Add highlights, snow for mountains, to add some realism. Lastly, glue the landscape onto the black paper with your aurora. I also added dots to look like stars.

Extension Activity: An extension activity that would work great is teaching them about the magnetic poles of the earth, which creates this phenomenon.