Session 3: Distances to the Planets

In this session, the primary activity involved setting up a scale model of the solar system in the hallway.  Our hallway is 50 meters from the radiator at one end to the first step leading down into the gymnasium.  I had originally planned on having the children rescale all the planet distances to fit, but that involved an "odd" scale factor and I didn't have enough time in class to be able to lead them through the process of calculating the scale.  It's not hard to do, but...

Ahem.  Excuse me while I get on my hobby horse about "Everyday Math."  I'm pretty much fed up with "math" problems where the primary technique involves guesswork or trial and error.  To get them over the hurdle of calculating the correct scale factor, I would have to give a set of math lessons and help them practice for longer than the class time.  Okay, I'm getting off my hobby horse now.

So we just scaled by the nearest power of ten to almost fit everything in the hall.  Pluto ends up at 59 meters and change, which is in the gymnasium.  Fortunately, on Thursday, no one was using the gym, and on Friday, we snuck in very briefly to place Pluto, then removed everything.