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This is a great interactive lesson. You could also ask the class if they think this would be useful or even important in space, whether they think the space between the planets is hot or cold, and whether an astronaut far from the Sun would need more insulation. This helps them examine concepts of distance. It even opens the possibility to discuss how earth’s own insulation blanket, our atmosphere, is so important.
Hi Caroline. Welcome and thanks for that fun fact. It’s a really good example of how different cultures have looked at the skies above and connected humanity to them in different ways. The Matariki is a Maori word, while the ancient Greek word for this group of seven stars is the Pleiades. And when I was young we learned of these as the Seven Sisters because most people can see seven stars in the cluster. It’s possibly even something to ask the class to do in the winter months, to see if they can find the Matariki and see how many stars they can count.
A fun fact about magnetic dust. If you hang a magnet up outside your school for a couple of weeks and afterwards see what’s stuck to it, a good percentage comes from iron in the air from shooting stars.
Hi Denise, great to have you on the forum. The silence of space is a popular fun fact. What do classes think about this? Does it make it easier or harder to communicate and can they think of other ways to communicate if space is silent!
Hi Noreen, thanks for the fun fact. This is a great example of how fast things spin. Even though Venus is almost the same size as the Earth, it spins so much slower on its axis. You could ask your pupils to put a list of the length of day on each planet in order from shortest to longest!
Hi Lucy! Well done to your five year old for the fun space fact. That’s a new one on the forum. Can the children compare the size of the Great Red Spot to hurricanes on Earth, maybe using pictures of both? Can they compare the time that the GRS has lasted (hint: since at least the time of Galileo) compared to the longest lasting hurricanes on Earth.
Hi Michelle, welcome. Even though the sun is over 100 million km away, it takes light only 8 minutes, so light must be super fast. Comparisons with the speeds of objects made by humans is insightful and opens up questions about how long it might take to visit other planets – but not the sun!
Hi Jade and Katie. What might a school garden look like on the Moon or Mars I wonder and what would be needed for the plants and insects to thrive?
Hi Jade, that’s great that you’ve now got more confidence and knowledge to do a full space unit. I’m sure you’ll become even more confident after completing the course. That’s a great fun fact. What do the children think it would be like to live on Mars, soon after the first landings and then maybe 10 years later? What type of habitats do they think are needed and what might they imagine? This inquiry would have been somewhat theoretical in the past, but becomes ever more a possible reality.
Welcome Louise. I have no doubt you’ll learn lots and enjoy the engagements with other teachers and their great ideas which are often based on experiences in class.
Hi Aislinn, that’s a very interesting fun fact. It’s a good example that a simple observation does not always lead to the correct interpretation. Meteors do look so much like shooting stars! Doing different experiments to understand what’s happening is often needed if the inquiry is to result in valid results. How might the children determine that meteors are not actually shooting stars? (Prompt/hint might involve whether you’re looking at shooting stars from the ground or from space.)
Welcome Alison. Thanks for the fun space fact which never fails to be impressive when you think about it and when you consider that – as some of the other teachers have pointed out – it would take 1.5 million earths just to fill one star, or sun!