Scale of planets- 22nd Feb

Today we built on our understanding of scale to make a scale diagram of the planets.  I used an online calculator and found out how big the planets should be if the sun is 3m. The children made the planets and I then explained how far away they would be from each other using known landmarks- see below. We went over it again back in school and looked at the places on the map.

Today we also worked with compasses – the children worked in pairs to write a ‘treasure map – set of directions’ for another pair. At all times the children had to be orientated north. This went well except no-one ended up where expected because we hadn’t set a measurement – we just used ‘paces’.

Planet Model size Distance from the sun Where in Elgin   if the sun is in Quarrel Woods. The distance we walk to..
sun 3m    
Mercury 1cm 124 m the car park
Venus 2.6cm 233m After the car park
Earth 2.7cm 324m The shoe tree
Mars 1.5cm 491m Beechbrae
Jupiter 30cm 1.7 km school
Saturn 25cm 3km town centre
Uranus 11cm 6.2km Distance from School to  outskirts of Lossiemouth
Neptune 11cm 9.7km Lossiemouth lighthouse
Pluto 0.5cm 12.6km Burghead (ish!)

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