The Bonus question for Day One's homework was to walk the solar system using the following guide. Sun - starting point - d=0
Mercury - 10 steps from the sun
Venus - 9 steps from Mercury
Earth - 7 steps from Venus
Mars - 14 paces from Earth
Jupiter - 95 paces from Mars
Saturn - 112 paces from Jupiter
Uranus - 249 paces from Saturn
Neptune - 281 paces from Uranus
Pluto - 242 paces from Neptune...we still honor Pluto as being a part of our solar system despite his recent demotion to dwarf planet status!
In order for you to get credit for having "walked" the solar system, please email me a sentence or two (or paragraph) on your reactions to this exercise. Out of 25 students I have only 4 of you that gave me responses to this experiment. I know that more of you have done this, but just forgot to hand it in. Please email me with your reactions or turn them in on a separate sheet of paper in class tomorrow so you get this easy bonus credit.
Thanks!
2 comments:
Wow! This was a surprising exercise for me. Mercury, Venus and Earth were about as far from the Sun as I had expected, but when I started counting paces to Jupiter, I suddenly realized I was in for a long walk. There really is a lot more open space -- even within our solar system -- than I had ever considered conceivable!
Yes, the first time I did this exercise I had 8 cub scouts with me. By the time we got to Pluto they were all huffing and puffing up this low grade hill we were climbing. By the end they couldn't get over how tiny the sun seemed. We used a basketball as our sun for proportion. Once you've walked the Solar System, you will always have an appreciation for the word, "space." Yep, there is a lot of it in our Universe!
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