Rosie Guerrera

42156882

Lesson 8 - Exploring planet sizes and distances

Unit of work:
Out of this world! Exploring the science of
Space.

Stage 2: Year 4
Term: N/A
Week: N/A

Outcomes:
NSW Science Syllabus:
- ES S2.6
- UT S2.9
- VA1, VA2, VA3, VA5

Key Scientific Knowledge:

The Solar System consists of the Sun, eight
planets, hundreds of moons, asteroids,
dwarf planets and other small bodies. The
International Astronomical Union ultimately
decided to call Pluto a dwarf planet in
2006 (Britt, 2012). Of the eight planets, the
inner four are rocky and terrestrial,
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars while the outer
planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and
Neptune are gas giants. All bodies orbiting
the Sun travel in paths called eclipses, the
amount an eclipse is stretched out is called
its eccentricity (NASA,2013). The orbits of
most planets have low eccentricity. The
Suns mass provides the gravitational force
which pulls objects around their elliptical
paths (NASA, 2013). The closer a planet is
to the Sun, the faster it moves around its
orbit. This means that the planets do not
stay in a straight line, but rather move
around at different speeds around their
ellipses.

NSW Science Syllabus for the

Australian Curriculum:
- ST2-9ES
- ST2-5WT
- ST2-1VA, ST2-3VA

KLA integration:
NSW English Syllabus
- TS 2.1
NSW English Syllabus for the
Australian Curriculum
- EN2-1A
NSW Mathematics Syllabus
- MS 2.1
- DS 2.1
- NS 2.3
NSW Mathematics Syllabus for the
Australian Curriculum
- MA2-6NA
- MA2-9MG
- MA2-18SP
Lesson description:

Resources:
-iPad
-grapefruit
-pepper flakes
-marbles
-pepper seeds
-poppy seeds
-place cards
-metre ruler

Rosie Guerrera
42156882

- 10 min: Brainstorm with the class about how big they think the solar system is. Discuss
where they have seen diagrams of the sun and planets such as in a book. Explain that
books may not provide an accurate scaled representation of the solar system due to the
limits of the page width. Discuss the mission: You are scientists investigating the
distances between the planets from the Sun. To do this, you must reduce the Solar
System to a walkable distance, one ten-billionth of the size of the actual Solar System.
The students will be grouped into nine groups to research one of the 8 planets and the
dwarf planet Pluto.
- 20 mins: The students will use the webquest:
http://createwebquest.com/rosieguerrera/planet-sizes-and-distances and follow the
steps with their group. The students will be given iPads to investigate the diameter of
their planet and the average distance from the Sun of their planet. The students will
write their results in a table in their workbooks. After completing their table, the children
will check their results with their iPads on the website
http://thinkzone.wlonk.com/SS/SolarSystemModel.php . The students will be introduced
to scale as they put the scale in which is 1:10 billion in the solar system calculator to
calculate the model distances and fill in their tables to show the scaled diameter and
distanced from the Sun. The children will then need to calculate how many paces (each
representative of 1m) they will need to get to each planet.
-10 mins: The teacher will have varieties of resources on the table to represent the
different planets (appendix 1). The teacher will set the resources in a row, and children
will be able to observe the planet resources and see the differences in scale. The children
will fasten a place card to each of the resources to ensure they do not get lost in the
walk. Show the children how to pace (2 steps- one on each foot will be representative of a
metre). Practice pacing in the classroom using a metre stick for reference.
-20 mins: Take the class outside and put the Sun representation down and continue the
paces to Mercury. Ask the students responsible for each planet to count the paces out
loud as they walk. Continue the paces to each planet location using the measurements
from the childrens table. The entire walk is 589m.
-5 mins: Conclude discussing what the children learnt about the distances of the planets
and the sizes of the planets. Discuss the concept of all the planets being in a straight line,
outline that this would be rare occurrence in space, as planets do not often align.
Encourage children to comment on one thing that surprised them about the walk.
Simplification:
Extension:
- Teachers can group children based on
- The children can also research the Earths
their abilities to encourage peer learning
moon distance from the Earth, and use a
in the research task. The children can use
resource to represent the Moon.
pre-made tables to assist them with the
research task.

Rosie Guerrera
42156882

References:
Britt, R. (2012), Order of the 8 (or 9) planets, Space, Retrieved 25th October,
2013 from, http://www.space.com/16080-solar-system-planets.html
Lunar and Planetary Institute (2012) Activity: Hopping Across the Solar System,
Retrieved 25th October, 2013 from
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/education/explore/solar_system/activities/hopping.
shtml
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). (2013), Comet Origins
and Travels: NASAs Stardust Mission: Think SMALL in a big way, Retrieved
25th October 2013 from http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/educ/docs/3-stardstch03.pdf
National Optical Astronomy Observatory (n.d) The Thousand Yard Model,
Retrieved 25th October, 2013 from
http://www.noao.edu/education/peppercorn/pcmain.html
Thinkzone (2013) Solar System Scale Model Calculator, Retrieved 25th October,
2013 from, http://thinkzone.wlonk.com/SS/SolarSystemModel.php?
scale=10000000000