[sapphire_chan]

http://www.**********/general72/size.htm

It's just nifty in general, but I thought this was the most appropriate forum.

Anyone else want a set of planets now?

 

[srain]

I son't have a link right now, but I've had fun showing students the distances between planets as well as relative sizes. Gather balls, seeds, etc. that are in approximately the right proportions to represent the sun and planets, and after placing the sun, measure out how far away Mercury, Venus, etc. would be. You might be surprised!

 

[Dar]

I did this when I taught high school science... as I recall, our sun was around 12 feet in diameter (we stuck it up on a wall and folded it over onto the ceiling) and earth was maybe half an inch? It was neat.

We also hung them all from the ceiling, with the ratios between the distances being the same as the actual ratios (we did have to use different conversion ratios for diameter and distance, though). The first 4 planets were really close to the sun, and Pluto was way across the room.

dar

 

[folkypoet]

Ooh, I love this project!

This site details one way of doing it and provides lots of good info. It's aimed at classrooms, but can easily be adapted to smaller groups/families/homeschoolers.

 

[simple living mama]

Thank you! How very cool. I can't wait to show the kids when they wake up.