Today we hear from Jamie Foster, one of our instructors who has been with SLO Classical Academy since last November. He currently teaches 2nd and 5th grade math and Astronomy Enrichment.
This was a fun astronomy exercise we did (Astronomy Enrichment for Frago, Thursdays, 1245-230) on 12/1/11. We modeled the solar system keeping both distances and size of sun/planets in the same scale (usually one or the other is sacrificed in order to make it “fit” on a bulletin board or on a table). It took all the space between Room 20 and the far side of the baseball diamond (about 350 feet). The Sun was about an inch in diameter and the planets were the smallest dot a pencil could make at the top of its popsicle stick. The Sun was placed first, followed by Mercury at 3 feet, then Venus at 3 more feet, etc. out to Pluto which was about 350 feet from the Sun. In addition to simply observing and appreciating the entire solar system before them, the students also made angular measurements of the dots and the sticks from each planet to the Sun and vice versa (holding pencil points at arm’s length).
Thank you, Jamie! What a memorable exercise to demonstrate the solar system. Just a reminder that Grand days are this Wednesday and Thursday. Are the Grand people in your life coming?
