Home › Forums › Teaching Space in Junior Classes with Curious Minds and ESERO › Module 2 – The Moon, the Earth and the Sun › Reply To: Module 2 – The Moon, the Earth and the Sun
How much fun to make a physical model of the Solar System. You could ask children in what ways the model is good at showing the Solar System and and what ways it isn’t so good.
For me:
Good
- planets orbit in the same plane
- planets are in correct order from the Sun
Not so good
- planet speed is smaller for planets further away from the Sun – so the outer planets should take baby baby steps (this is Kepler’s Laws of Motion – covered lightly in leaving cert physics!!)
- unless you have a huge hall, the inner planets are likely to be squashed together and the outer planets will be too close.
See this beautiful video of a scale solar system being created in the desert:
PBS learning link with additional resources.
They also have the map a solar system to your area – which is great to show and then discuss where each orbit would be in terms of familiar areas near your school.
If the Sun was 200 cm across on Blackrock Castle Observatory, then the Earth’s orbit would be at the far side of the car park and Jupiter’s orbit would across the river at the Dunkettle roundabout!