Abstract. A series of activities that are suitable for distance education students to illustrate physics concepts related to solar radiation are described. The students can undertake the activities at any location without having to attend the home institution. Detectors interfaced to computers that make the data available on Web pages are employed. The data are updated every 5 min and can be considered to be in real time. Employing the framework of solar radiation to teach the physics concepts in these activities means that the students can identify how these concepts apply to every day situations.

Print publication: Issue 2 (March 2005)
Received 21 September 2004, in final form 14 January 2005
Published 24 February 2005