Week 4: Scale Model Solar System

 Week 4: Scale Model Solar System

1. What did you do in lab today? In lab we conducted an experiment to model the first four planets of our Solar System. We were able to use whatever was available to us in the classroom (lab space). The goal was to make it to scale in means of size and distance. My table group decided to start with our Sun being 500mm. From then on Mercury was 1.748mm, Venus was 4.349mm, Earth was 4.577mm, Mars was 2.428mm, and the Moon was 1.247mm. We ended up going from the science lab room down to the PLC at the West side of North Lindquist. 

2. What was the big question? The big question presented at the beginning of lab was "Why is the sight of a full moon phases startling in the middle of the day?". A full moon during daylight happens when the moon and sun are positioned on opposite sides of the Earth. In this phase, the moon usually rises right as the sun sets and disappears as the sun comes up. This makes its presence during the day feel sort of out of place.

3. What did you learn in Thursday's lecture? I learned 13.7 billion years ago there was nothing nowhere. Then all of the sudden subatomic particles inflated to unimaginably huge size in a fraction of a second. This is what we know as the expansion, not an explosion, this is when time and space were created aka the big bang theory.

Textbook:

1. What did you learn? I learned when a star undergoes a supernova it is referring to a large explosion of a super huge star at the end of its lifecycle. A supernova was part of process when our solar system came about.

2. What was most helpful? There was an area of Key Takeaways that helped me differentiate the two separate ideas of the Big Bang and Earth becoming a planet. I always thought they both came about at the same time through the same event being the Big Bang. The textbook listed that there was a 9 billion year lapse between the two!

3. What do you need more information on? How to teach this information to kids and make it stick in their heads? Are there activities to show the Big Bang?

1. What questions, concerns, and/or comments do you have? Calling it the "big bang" is misleading for students (and honestly anyone) since it basically hints that it was an explosion, but scientist don't want us to think this because it was an expansion.












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