Spinning in Space

Last term a lot of students asked Mrs Baldwin if our next Science topic could be about Space. Their wish was granted because this term we will be learning about the Solar System.  We will be looking at the relationship between the Sun, Earth and Moon, we will also look closely at the moon and its phases along with the 8 main planets.

Today we  began by discussing the size of the Sun, Earth and Moon. We compared the Sun as a size of a basketball, Earth as a marble and the Moon as a single peppercorn. We asked the question that if the Moon is so small compared to the Sun, then why is it that when we see the Moon in the Sky it is a similar size than the Sun? We talked about that the Moon is very close to Earth compared to the Sun which is why it looks quite large at night time.

Next we then investigated how far away each planet is from the Sun. To do this we used something you would not use very often in a science lesson – toilet paper. We were given the distances of each planet from the Sun and these distances were then scaled down by using toilet paper pieces.

Firstly we counted out how many pieces we needed for each planet.

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Then in small groups we went outside and laid out each length of the toilet paper so we could see the different distances each planet has from the Sun. Unfortunately the weather was against us and the strong wind and then rain made it hard to complete. However Room 9 are persistent workers and next week we will complete the measurement activity with the entire class.

We also recorded the distances of each planet from the Sun by drawing a graph.

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Anah’s Work
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Lachie’s Work
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Charlie K’s Work

Mrs Baldwin gave us a moon diary to complete over the next month. Each night we will be recording what the moon looks like and record this in our journal. It will be interesting to see how the moon changes each night. Our results and discussions about the moon phases will be posted on our blog later this term!

What have you found interesting about learning about the size and distances of the Sun, Earth, Moon and the planets?

What would you like to learn next about the Solar System?

Can you write about one fact that you know about the Solar System?

12 thoughts on “Spinning in Space

  1. Dear mrs Baldwin
    I enjoyed doing that lesson because we had to use toilet paper and and it was about planets.
    From Chandan

  2. Dear Mrs Baldwin,

    I have found it interesting to learn that the further away from the sun you go the greater the distance between the planets. Also I learnt that the sun is thousands of times bigger than earth.

    I would like to know about stars that are bigger than our sun and how much bigger they are in comparison to our star.

    From Noah

  3. Dear Mrs Baldwin,
    I really enjoy the spinning in space.
    I also like the tolite paper one to.
    they are creative.

    From Olivia.D

  4. Dear Mrs B,
    The next thing about space that I want to learn about is if stars are just light or is it a sun.
    From Jess

  5. Dear Mrs Baldwin,
    It was really interesting to me that after Jupiter the gaps between the planets jumped up a lot and how far Neptune was from the sun. I liked the idea of using toilet paper for measuring it.

    The next thing I would like to learn about the solar system is were what probes have been.
    From Ilya

  6. Dear Mrs Baldwin,

    Next i would like to learn about what other planets there are and moons there are.

    This is one of the facts i learnt about SPACE
    * that a pluto is not a planet
    * that pluto is 100 miles away

    From Karina

  7. Dear Mrs Baldwin
    What I found interesting about the planets was that Earth was only 2.5 toilet paper squares away from the sun.
    I liked doing the science graph but it was annoying how my pencil kept going blunt
    1 fact I know about the Solar System is that the Sun will burn to it’s core in 5 billion years! [lucky we wont be around then].

    From Brodie :p

  8. Dear Mrs Baldwin,
    I enjoyed the toilet paper planet distance activity because it was fun counting all the pieces. next time I would like to know what all the planets look like.
    from Kayley

  9. Dear Mrs B, what I found interesting was the way we measured the km in between the plants to the sun.

    Next I would love I mean love! to learn about how the rings go around and do things outside saturn.
    From Megan

  10. Dear mrs Baldwin,

    What I would like to learn about the soalor system next is what is the big black dot on Jupiter

    A cool fact about the soalor system is
    * the sun is a star
    *the stars are suns
    *Jupiter is the biggest planet

    From Anah

  11. Dear Mrs Baldwin,
    I’m not really a science person but I do a few things that I know like the moon looks bigger than the sun but in fact because the moon is closer to earth so it looks bigger and the moon doesn’t always look the same it can change in size .

    The thing I found interesting was how the moon and sun we’re completly different in size .

    From Anika

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