This project is out of this world!!!

Blast out of this world in Ms Ulrich’s science class! This awesome event took place September 15, 2009 with Ms Wood’s class and Dr. Reinemann. How bizarre! They used toilet paper!   It was the best idea ever because Dr. Reinemann said that toilet paper was an awesome way to measure distances.  First they cut out scaled down replicas of the planets from large pieces of paper. They used sheets of toilet paper as a unit of measurement.  They used a table chart to know how many sheets of toilet paper to use for the distance of each planet from the Sun. This 3rd  grade class learned a lot from this activity because they got to see how the planets are positioned and to see the amount of distance between the eight planets.  Oh, and they didn’t forget about poor little Pluto.  They included it on the  measurement chart even though it is a dwarf planet.

PLANET DISTANCE FROM THE SUN SQUARES OF TOILET PAPER
Mercury 57,910,000 km 1.0
Venus 108,200,000 km 1.8
Earth 149,600,000 km 2.5
Mars 227,940,000 km 3.8
Ceres (asteroid) 414,436,363 km 7.0
Jupiter 778,330,000 km 13.2
Saturn 1,429,400,000 km 24.2
Uranus 2,870,990,000 km 48.6
Neptune ,4504,000,000 km 76.3
Pluto 5,913,520,000 km 100

http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/solar_system/;copyright 1997, Ron Hipschman, Exploratorium. 17 Oct. 2009

Alice G., Annie G., Julia M., and Jackie P.