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Product Name: Our Solar System

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Materials: A nice day outside, and a large field 10 objects visible in the grass (or other outside material) A measuring instrument (as large scale as possible) Preparation: Place one object on the ground, remembering that this is the Sun Place the other 9 objects (planets) at distances from the "Sun" according to the following guide: Mercury: 5 inches Venus: 9 inches Earth: 1 foot Mars: 1 foot, 6 inches Jupiter: 5 feet, 2 inches Saturn: 9 feet, 6 inches Uranus: 19 feet, 2 inches Neptune: 30 feet, 1 inch Pluto: 39 feet, 6 inches Procedure: Gather the students around the "Sun." Make sure that, in traveling to this spot, the students are not able to walk past the other "planets." Point out to the students the inner four planets, explaining how close they seem to be on the scaling system you are using. Then, instruct a student to travel to Jupiter, and stand next to its marker. Help the students to understand that, on this distance scale, the nearly 4-foot gap is truly large. Then, instruct another student to travel to Saturn. Again, point out how the planets are not only getting farther away from the Sun, but also are growing in distance from each other. Have a third student travel to Uranus, a fourth to Neptune, and a final one to Pluto, sparking a short conversation about the increasing distances in between each planetary discovery. Call all of the students back to the Sun, and then explain to them the scaling system that was used: 1 foot is one AU (astronomical unit), or approximately 93 million miles!

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A team of 14 Olin Partners has accepted the challenge of designing a Mars Deployable Greenhouse for NASA's MarsPort 2002 competition. On December 14, the team was announced as one of six seminfinalist teams in the competition. They submitted... more