Make A Scale Model Of The Solar System And Learn The Real Definition Of Space
- Fill in the diameter of the Sun you want your model to be scaled by. You can fill in either the red bordered inches box or the green bordered millimeters box. Important: Only fill in one box. If both are filled in you will get a dialog box asking you to clear one of the boxes. Use the Clear button to clear the entire form.
| in | mm |
I’ve only given you the sizes and distances to the planets. If you’d like to see the satellites of the planets as well, for a much more extensive page
Choose Where Your Model Solar System Will Go
Pick a place to set up your solar system model. This could be across a bedroom wall, along the floor of a hallway or large room, outside in a yard, or down a sidewalk.
Keep your choice in mind as you calculate the size of planets and distances between them in the next steps. You’ll need to have enough materials, and your model will have to fit within the place you choose.
Instructions for building a model out of beads and string, sidewalk chalk, or yard markers are included below, but you can use any materials or any space you like!
Solar System Calculator Resources
If you need a solar system scale model calculator to help you as you are working on these activities with your class, Ive got you covered. You can find one through Think Zone that also helps you create a map or this resource, Build a Solar System Model, that contains not only a calculator but lots of other great resources to help you too! Youll definitely want to check both of those resources out.
If youre looking for other great solar system resources to supplement your solar system unit, check out my solar system resources on Teachers Pay Teachers here.
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Scale Model Of The Solar System
A solar system is a group of planets and other space material orbiting a star. In our solar system, that star is better known as the Sun and the planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
The solar system models youve seen before probably dont show how much bigger some planets are than others, or, more importantly for space travel, how far away the planets are from the Sun and each other. The Earth is about 150 million kilometers from the Sun. Because this distance is so important to us Earthlings, it has been given a special name, called the Astronomical Unit for short. The Earth is one astronomical unit from the sun. Planets that are closer to the Sun than the Earth have a measured distance of less than one A.U. while objects farther from the Sun than Earth have a measured distance of greater than one A.U.
The size of a planet can be determined from its diameter. Diameter, you might remember from math class, is the distance from one end of circle or sphere to another side, going through the middle.
Options For Creating The Solar System Scale Model
Before you get started with models in the classroom, consider asking your students these questions:
- What makes something a model?
- How are the models used?
- Why are the models used?
Then consider having students create their own scaled models first as a way to predict the size and distance. This will make the impact much greater afterward. After creating models , give images of the solar system and discuss why they are inaccurate models.
These options are in no particular order and you do not have to use just one. In fact, creating multiple models will help students comprehend more.
1.) If the Moon Were Only a Pixel Website. I absolutely love this website. Just by simply scrolling this website to the right your students can see how far away everything is in space and their relative sizes. The creator of this website includes a little humor as you are scrolling through his site. Its definitely worth the visit! You can visit the If the Moon Were Only a Pixel Website here.
- Mercury 4,879 km
- Venus 12,104 km
- Earth 12,742 km
- Mars 6,779 km
- Jupiter 139,820km
- Saturn 116, 460 km
- Uranus 50,724 km
- Neptune 49,244 km
- Sun 1.391 Million km
3.) National Geographic Video. In this video, a group of friends works together to create a scale model in 7 miles of the desert. It really helps provide a visual of the distance between planets and their sizes in comparison to one another. The clip is relatively short and would be a great way to introduce the topic to students.
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Model Solar System Supplies
- Neptune
- Pluto
Ask if they know how big our solar system is. Explain that they’ll learn about it today.
Give the kids 10 index cardsone for each planet plus one for the sun. They’ll only need 8 if you leave out Pluto.
Have them write the name of a planet on a card plus the distance from the sun.
To help the Scouts learn more about the planets, you could add these activities:
- Draw a picture of the planet on the card.
- Cut out and paste an image of the planet onto the card.
- Write three fun facts about each planet on the back of the card.
Importance Of Making A Model In Science
The last part of the requirement is to explain the value of making a model in science. This website does a great job of explaining it.
My biggest takeaway is that a model helps us understand something that we can’t experience on our own. We can’t go to Pluto to understand how far apart our planets are. But by using our model, we can get a sense of how vast the universe is.
What do you think? Will your Cub Scouts enjoy this toilet paper solar system model?
Yours in Scouting,Sherry
P.S. The Adventures in Science adventure counts as one of the requirements for the Swing! Nova award.
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Scaling Down The Solar System
Options For Creating Solar System Scaled Models
If you teach the solar system, at some point, you and your students will likely have to create a scale model too. This project doesnt have to be dreaded nor does it have to be fully teacher dependent. There are many options when it comes to creating this solar system scale model and thats what this post is about today.
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Calculate Scale Planet Sizes
If you’re making a scale-size model, keep reading for two different methods of calculating the scale sizes of the planets. For a scale-distance model, see Step 4 above.
Calculate manually:
Calculate using a spreadsheet:
Try different values for Earth to make your scale planets larger or smaller depending on the materials you have available to represent the size of each planet.
Once you’ve done your calculations, go to Step 9 to find out how to make a sidewalk chalk scale model. You can also come up with your own creative display using your choice of materials.
Calculate Combined Scale Distance And Planet Size
If you are interested in a more accurate way to represent the solar system and have a lot of space to work with, try making a model of the solar system that displays distance and planet size at the same scale. Otherwise, skip this step.
Steps:
Scale Diameter / Scale Distance = Actual Diameter / Actual Distance | + Expand image
Scale Planet Distance / Scale Earth Diameter = Actual Planet Distance / Actual Earth Diameter | + Expand image
In this example, the spreadsheet function calculates the product of the scale diameter of Earth and the actual distance to Mars divided by the actual diameter of Earth using =/D5. | + Expand image
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How To Draw The Solar System
This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Kyle Hall. Kyle Hall works on the content team at wikiHow. He helps manage our team of editors and creates content for a variety of wikiHow projects. Kyle continually looks for new ways to improve the content at wikiHow and make it more helpful and enjoyable for readers. He graduated from Eckerd College in 2015, where he majored in Political Science.There are 13 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page.wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. In this case, several readers have written to tell us that this article was helpful to them, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 373,209 times.Learn more…
The solar system is made up of the Sun and the 8 planets that orbit it, including Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Drawing the solar system is easy once you know the size and order of the planets, and its a great way to learn about the different properties of the celestial bodies that Earth shares space with. You can even draw the solar system to scale by scaling down the distances between the planets and the sun. Use a ruler for a estimation of the distance. Each centimeter is one AU .
Learn About Sizes And Distances In Our Solar System
Distances in the solar system can be huge! The distance from the Sun to Neptune is nearly three billion miles . Because the distances between planets are so great, astronomers sometimes describe distances in terms of astronomical units . One AU is equal to the average distance between the Sun and Earth, about 93 million miles . This allows scientists to describe and calculate distances more efficiently. For example, instead of saying, “Mars is 130 million miles from the Sun,” scientists can say, “Mars is 1.5 AU from the Sun.”
It’s not just the distances between planets that are large. There are also huge differences in the size of each planet. Because of this, it can be difficult or even impossible to display both planet size and distance accurately, especially in smaller scale models like an image.
Watch this video about the size of planets and the distances between them to see how far they are from each other, how they differ in size, and how difficult it is to display both their size and distance accurately.
Watch en Español: Seleccione subtítulos en Español bajo el ícono de configuración. | Watch on YouTube
More solar system size and scale resources:
- Solar System Sizes and Distances reference guide
- Solar System Trading Cards
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Shop My Homeschool Room:
The following homeschool picks of mine can be found on Etsy. Simply click the image that interests you yes, they do contain affiliate links.
Tripp is now a Senior in high school and throughout the years, he has been very interested in our Solar System. Space is kind of his thing. He was pulled out of the public school system shortly after I originally wrote this post.
We spent years learning about different stars and planets while homeschooling and developed his love of all things space.
Now, Tripp is planning to go to college to be an Astrophysicist! How exciting is that?
If your child shows interest in something, feed them! Give them as much as you can about that interest. You never know what kind of expert you just might develop!
Drawing The Sun And Planets
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How To Make A Poster Of The Solar System
This article was co-authored by Bess Ruff, MA. Bess Ruff is a Geography PhD student at Florida State University. She received her MA in Environmental Science and Management from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2016. She has conducted survey work for marine spatial planning projects in the Caribbean and provided research support as a graduate fellow for the Sustainable Fisheries Group. This article has been viewed 97,554 times.
Many students get an assignment to make a solar system poster. This is a really fun art project because you have the opportunity to decorate it in any way youd like. You can make it by simply drawing the planets, cutting out shapes to be planets, or even using foam balls to make the poster three-dimensional. With a little bit of research, you can add facts to the poster about each planet that will make it even more interesting to look at.
Materials For How To Draw Planets
- Pencil. The Ticonderoga brand are the most reliable, make nice dark lines when you need them, and are the easiest to erase. Buying the pre-sharpened ones will save busy teachers a lot of time.
- Eraser. Large ones you can hold in your hand do a much better job than just the pencil tip erasers, especially when erasing leftover pencil lines after tracing.
- BlackSharpie Marker. These fine point permanent marker pens make nice black outlines, have a good tip for coloring, and never bleed when they get wet. Use them with good ventilation and add extra paper underneath to protect your tables.
- Prang Crayons. These are a bit softer than other crayons so they sometimes look like oil pastels. They also have a some nice brown shades that Crayola does not have unless you buy their larger boxes.
- Crayola Crayons. The reliable brand that always works well. The 24 pack has some of my favorite golden orange and yellow colors that seem a bit richer and warmer than the ones Prang has.
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