Northern Lights


Project Description:

In this project, we explored the northern lights and how they appear in the sky through a short lesson. After learning about what causes them, we were introduced to six different oil pastel techniques. Using a sheet of black paper, we first drew and cut out a mountain range. We used this cut-out as a stencil on a second black paper to help us mark where the mountains would go so we could focus on coloring the sky above. We used bright oil pastel colors and at least three of the techniques we learned to create the northern lights. Once the sky was finished, we added white snow to the tops of our mountain cut-outs and glued them down over our colorful sky. We could also add stars or a moon to complete our nighttime scene.


Extension Activity:

As a fun follow-up, students could write a short creative story or postcard pretending they traveled to a place where they saw the northern lights in person. They could describe what they saw, how they felt, and who they were with. Then, the stories could be displayed next to their artwork in the hallway to create an immersive “Aurora Gallery” experience for the school.



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