[English][Português] The Universe and the Solar System for Kids
[English]
Today, I had a really great experience. I was invited to give an astronomy talk to the 8 years-old kids in my son’s class.
For that I prepared a short film using iMovie. The film could be paused as I needed to explain things and the kids were able to make questions (and they did ask a lot of interesting questions!).
Also, I prepared a mini-solar system in (more or less) scale using simple material that kids can prepare themselves. Here is a picture:
This site is very useful to make a model of the solar system in scale, including the orbits. I have made a second set of the solar system including the Sun in a scale of 4cm in diameter, and we were able to lay the nano-planets (indeed, Mercury is almost nothing at that scale!) over the floor with the help of a metric tape. At about 22 meters from the Sun, Jupiter was the last one that fit into the recreational area.
Notice that I have started with the Sun, setting it to 4 cm in diameter in order to get at least Jupiter’s orbit inside the recreational area of the school. Mercury gets incredibly tiny in that scale. If you have a larger area you can try a larger value for the Sun’s diameter.
I do not recall the modeling clay type that I used. Also, I am in Brazil, so I don’t think I can help you indicating specific brands, in case you came here from elsewhere… In any case, I hope that site above helps you in setting an adequate solar system scale.
I can send you the video if you are interested, but all titles are in portuguese. Contact me by email: christinedantas*AT*yahoo.com. What follows are directions in portuguese.
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[Português]
MATERIAL EDUCATIVO SOBRE O UNIVERSO E O SISTEMA SOLAR
Criei um filme e um texto para alunos do ensino fundamental. O filme e o texto de narração estão disponíveis gratuitamente. Para adquirir o filme em alta resolução, é necessário o envio de um DVD virgem para cópia e o valor em dinheiro para postagem simples. Se houver interesse, entre em contato pelo email: christinedantas*AT*yahoo.com. Uma versão do filme em baixa resolução (para avaliação inicial) pode ser adquirido através do serviço YouSentIt (entre em contato pelo email acima). Futuramente, penso em colocar o filme no YouTube.
Você pode baixar o texto abaixo gratuitamente, sob licença Creative Commons:
O Universo e o Sistema Solar: em formato pdf para download. Este texto pode ser usado livremente, porém os direitos são reservados para Christine Córdula Dantas.
O sistema solar da figura acima foi feito em massinha de modelar simples.
