Thursday, April 23, 2009

Solar System to Scale

Damn, this is one huuuuuuuuge universe we live in!

My class is studying the solar system, which I can't claim to be an expert in but love learning about-- I get so totally blown away and amazed by some of the fantastically un-mind-wrappable concepts and facts, and it's so cool to share things with students and see them be amazed as well. One of my students today was shocked to realize "we" were out in space, just like all the other planets. I asked her where she thought we were, and as the words "on the ground" came out I could see the light bulb flicker (and stay) on.

so I want to do one of those cool Solar System to Scale projects where the students can go outside and place (chalk? clay?) sun and planet models and see just how far apart everything really is -- any suggestions?

I did see that for most models, even the smallest, the nearest star is still apprx 4000 miles away! See what I mean? Wow!

1 comment:

TeachEnEspanol said...

We did the solar system at the beginning of the year and then we went to this cool place where we launched paper rockets. It was my students' favorite thing ever!

I love to see how excited you are getting about the topic. I don't have any helpful hints about a scale model but you'll have to let us know how it works out. :)