Friday, March 11, 2011

Planets, Proportions & Pottery: How many sheets to Uranus?

Students model a scale solar system model with toilet paper, and calculate distance and period of time for revolution.

Using a scale of 1 standard sheet of toilet tissue as 10,000,000 miles, we can use the unwound length of the roll of tissue as a ruler for a scale model of our solar system.
Calculate the distance of the planets using a scale of one tissue = 10,000,000 miles. One AU of 93,000,000 miles would be 9 1/3 sheets, 1.52 AU of 141,360,00 miles would be 14.1 sheets, etc.

Using a roll of school-grade toilet tissue, mark off the distances to the planets. Indicate planet placement at each of the appropriate distances.