# Bag of Wonder: The Earth > Our home from space: day and night, the seasons, find Michigan, and peek inside like a peach. A free interactive 3D exhibit for children aged 2 to 6, from Curiosity's Child in Troy, Michigan. - Interactive exhibit: https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/earth/ - Ages: 2 to 6. The story is pitched at the youngest; the tap cards give older children more to chew on. - Cost: free, with no sign-in, no ads and no tracking. - Works on: phones, tablets and computers, in a web browser. Sound on for the narration. ## What it is Our home planet up close: day and night, oceans and continents, the air, the seasons, the Moon, and the layers inside the Earth. Free, narrated interactive 3D for ages 2 to 6. How to play: press play to hear the story (read aloud in Kelly's voice, with the words on screen). Slide the time slider back and forth to see any part again. Slide "Pull apart" to see what is hidden inside. Tap any glowing button for a fact. ## The story 1. Hello, poppets! This is our home, planet Earth, seen from space. It looks like a big blue marble! 2. The Sun shines on one side of the Earth, and there it is daytime. The Earth spins around, and our home turns into the night. 3. Most of the Earth is covered in blue ocean. The big pieces of land are called continents. 4. This land is North America. And this mitten shape is Michigan. Here's where we live! 5. All around the Earth is a thin blue blanket of air. We breathe it! Clouds float in the air and bring us rain and snow. 6. The Earth leans a little, and it goes around the Sun once a year. When our side leans toward the Sun, it's summer. When it leans away, it's winter. 7. Our Moon goes around and around the Earth, about once a month. Soon we'll fly there! 8. What is inside the Earth? Let's cut it open, like a peach! There's the crust, the mantle, the outer core, and the inner core, right in the middle. 9. Earth is the only planet we know of with living things: plants, animals and people, like you! 10. What a wonderful home we have! Shall we fly to the Moon next? Tap the button, and off we go! ## The parts, and what we tell children These are the tap cards, word for word. - **Earth**: Earth is our home planet. It is a big ball of rock, with water on top and air all around it. - **The Sun**: The Sun is a star, very far away. It gives us light and keeps us warm. - **Night**: When your side of the Earth turns away from the Sun, it is night. Then the other side of the Earth has day! - **Ocean**: Salty ocean water covers most of the Earth. Whales, fish, turtles and coral live in it. - **North America**: North America has tall mountains, big forests, deserts and five Great Lakes. Michigan is here! - **South America**: South America has the Amazon, the biggest rainforest in the world, full of parrots, sloths and monkeys. - **Europe**: Europe has lots of countries close together, like Britain, France and Italy. - **Africa**: Africa has the Sahara, a huge sandy desert, and grasslands where lions, zebras and elephants live. - **Asia**: Asia is the biggest continent. It has the tallest mountain in the world, Mount Everest. - **Australia**: Australia is home to kangaroos and koalas. It is a continent and a country too! - **Antarctica**: Antarctica is at the bottom of the world. It is covered in thick ice, and penguins live there. - **Ice and snow**: At the top and bottom of the Earth it is very cold, so the land and the sea are covered in ice and snow. - **Land**: The big pieces of land are called continents. There are seven of them. - **Michigan**: Michigan is shaped like a mitten! Four of the five Great Lakes hug it. - **Air**: The air is a thin blanket all around the Earth. We breathe it, and it keeps us cozy. - **Clouds**: Clouds are made of tiny drops of water floating in the air. When the drops get big and heavy, they fall as rain or snow. - **The lean**: The Earth leans a little to one side, and it always leans the same way as it goes around the Sun. That lean gives us the seasons. - **One year**: One trip all the way around the Sun takes one year. On each birthday, you have been around the Sun one more time! - **The Moon**: The Moon goes around the Earth about once a month. It always shows us the same face. - **Crust**: The crust is the rocky outside, where we live. It is very thin, like the skin on a peach. - **Mantle**: The mantle is very hot rock, the thickest layer of all. It is solid, but it moves very, very slowly. - **Outer core**: The outer core is hot, runny metal. As it swirls, it makes the Earth a giant magnet. That's why a compass works! - **Inner core**: The inner core is a ball of metal in the very middle, about as hot as the outside of the Sun. It is squeezed so hard that it stays solid. - **Forests**: The north of Michigan is covered in big forests of pines, maples and oaks. Deer, owls and foxes live there. - **Farms**: Farmers here grow apples, cherries, corn and pumpkins. Plants need sunshine, water and good soil. - **The Great Lakes**: These giant lakes are fresh water, not salty like the ocean. Fish, ducks and loons live in them. - **Frogs**: Frogs live in ponds and wet places. They start life as tiny tadpoles, swimming in the water! - **Robins**: The robin is Michigan's state bird. In spring, robins build nests and lay pretty blue eggs. - **Pumpkins**: Pumpkins grow on long vines in the summer sunshine, and turn orange in the fall. - **People**: People live here too, like you, your family and Ms Daisy! We all need water, air and food, just like plants and animals. - **Living things**: Earth is the only planet we know of with plants, animals and people. It has water, air and sunshine, just right for life. ## Getting the science right What we checked, and the myths we steer around: - The globe is NASA's real Blue Marble: Next Generation (July 2004, and January 2004 for northern winter on the year's path), with NASA's Black Marble 2016 city lights on the night side and NASA's cloud map. The clouds are one real snapshot, not today's weather. - Day and night: the Earth spins once a day, west to east; the side facing the Sun has day. The story spins it much faster than real so a child can watch a place go into the night. - About 71% of the Earth's surface is ocean. There are seven continents (the cards name each one). Michigan borders four of the five Great Lakes (Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie). - Seasons come from the tilt, not from distance. The axis leans about 23.4° and always points the same way in space; when the northern half leans toward the Sun it is summer there. The Earth is actually closest to the Sun in early January, in Michigan's winter. The page never says or shows "closer = summer"; the path is drawn as a circle. Southern-hemisphere seasons are the other way round (the January map shows southern summer). - The year's path is drawn far too small and the Sun far too small and close; the Earth spins only a few times on the way round (really 365). The Moon is drawn much closer than it is (about 30 Earths away). Sizes and distances are not to scale, and the credits say so. - The Moon goes around the Earth about once a month (27.3 days around, 29.5 days from full Moon to full Moon) and always keeps the same face toward us. Its phases on the page come from real lighting. - Inside: crust, mantle, outer core, inner core, at their true depths (outer core from about 55% of the way out, inner core 19%), except the crust, which is drawn far thicker than real (5 to 70 km, under 1% of the radius). The mantle is solid rock that flows very slowly; it is not lava (magma only forms in small pockets). The outer core is liquid iron and nickel, and its swirling makes the Earth's magnetic field. The inner core is solid metal at about 5,200 °C, roughly the temperature of the Sun's surface (about 5,500 °C). The layer colors are a soft diagram, not real colors. - Earth is the only planet known to have life ("the only planet we know of"); scientists are still looking elsewhere. - The starry sky is NASA's real star map, "Deep Star Maps 2020" (Deep Star Maps, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4851, public domain; Gaia DR2: ESA/Gaia/DPAC), built from the Hipparcos, Tycho-2 and Gaia star catalogues, with the Milky Way drawn faint. It is lined up so the Earth's north pole points at the North Star, as it really does. (In real photographs taken near a bright, sunlit Earth, the stars are usually too faint to show; the page shows them so the sky looks like space.) - Gentle wording: no disasters, no volcanoes erupting, no "lava" inside; "Here's where we live" is Ms Daisy's home in Michigan. ## How to use it with children Watch the story with the sound on. In the day-and-night stage, shine a flashlight on a ball and turn it slowly. On the year's path, pause each season and ask, "Is Michigan leaning toward the Sun or away?" Then pull the Earth apart and name the layers from the middle out, like a peach: stone, fruit, skin. Ask more than you tell, and let the child drive. Then step away from the screen: day and night with a flashlight (the Sun) and a globe or ball with a sticker on your town: turn it and watch the sticker go into the dark. Seasons: walk a tilted ball around a lamp, always leaning the same way. Inside the Earth: cut a peach or a hard-boiled egg in half (a grown-up does the cutting) and compare the layers. A few minutes together is plenty. The exhibit is a doorway to the real thing, not a replacement for it. ## Credits and licenses The real scans, maps and photographs belong to their makers, under the licenses below. The words, story and code are Curiosity's Child's. - The Earth is NASA's real Blue Marble (July and January 2004), Black Marble city lights (2016) and cloud maps, from [NASA Earth Observatory / Visible Earth](https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/), public domain, with thanks; shown here for learning, not made or endorsed by NASA - The Moon: NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter map ([NASA CGI Moon Kit](https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4720), public domain) - The frog, robin and pumpkin pictures come from our own Frog, Robin and Pumpkin exhibits (frog scan by ffish.asia / floraZia, CC0; pumpkin scan by [Arkify 3D](https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/large-pumpkin-3d-scan-468e8e1daf284a81a017d2333ef075a1), [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/); the robin from Kelly's own photographs) - The starry sky: NASA's real star map, [Deep Star Maps 2020](https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4851) (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, public domain; Gaia DR2: ESA/Gaia/DPAC), from the Hipparcos, Tycho-2 and Gaia star catalogues - The Sun, the air, the layers inside and the year's path drawn in code - Sizes and distances are not to scale - Real sounds from Freesound ([CC0](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/), thank you!): [calm ocean waves](https://freesound.org/s/578524/) (SamsterBirdies), [soft wind](https://freesound.org/s/459977/) (florianreichelt), [a quiet night with crickets](https://freesound.org/s/857163/) (Goldenboy76), [a summer garden with birds](https://freesound.org/s/157778/) (matucha) - Space is silent, so its gentle hum and the music-box waltz were made for this page ## More on the Space shelf - [The Planets](https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/planets/index.md): Fly past the Sun and all eight planets, and peek inside them. - [The Moon](undefined): Phases, craters and the far side, then land with Eagle and leave footprints that last for ages. - [The Rocket](undefined): Count down, lift off and ride the giant Saturn V all the way to the Moon. - [The Mars Rover](undefined): Land on Mars with a real robot explorer and its little helicopter. ## About Bag of Wonder A free library of interactive 3D "look inside" science exhibits, made at Curiosity's Child, a licensed home daycare in Troy, Michigan. Secular and science-based; welcoming to all. - All exhibits and how we make them: https://bagofwonder.com/llms.txt - For grown-ups and AI assistants: https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/about/ - To cite: "The Earth", Bag of Wonder, Curiosity's Child (Troy, Michigan). https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/earth/