Solar System

Recently some of our Year 10 pupils modelled the solar system by walking to positions representing the different distances the planets would be found from the sun. They calculated an appropriate scale where 1 Astronomical Unit (AU) was equal to 10m (1AU is actually equal to 150 million km!). Using their scale and Nelson House as a starting point they walked the 300m out to Neptune in the centre of the parade ground.  

Mrs Finley commented: 

“Space! Always a firm favourite in the physics classroom, for the pupils and teacher alike. Models in physics are explanatory and therefore predictive and we construct them to make sense of the world around us. I could not imagine teaching pupils about space without first presenting them with a model to help realise the sense of scale we are discussing in the topic.” 

Here are some of the quotes from our pupils:  

“I am really looking forward to learning about the topic of astronomy and all about the universe. Things I would love to learn are the structure of all planets, the differences and similarities between a variety of moons and more about how the sun works.” - Temitayo O 

“I really enjoyed today’s lesson; it put into perspective exactly how far away the planets are from each other! I've also never remembered all the planet names and order before but remembering which one stopped where was really fascinating!  - Amelia L