Goals To represent earths physical place in the - PDF document

Goals: •To represent earth's physical place in the solar system and universe•To understand astronomical size and scale•To understand strengths and weaknesses of models In this activity students are challenged to create a model of the universe in a singleprofessional astronomers as well as for students — but it's a challenge that hasoccupied humanity for ages. To understand the vast ranges of scale of cosmicsystems, the student of the universe has to create and evaluate a variety of modelsagainst the observational evidence.A model is a simplified imitation of something that we hope can help us explain andunderstand it better. Models can take different forms, including physical devices orsculptures, drawings or plans, conceptual analogies, mathematical equations, andcomputer simulations. In this activity, students make a physical model to representleave out, and perhaps most importantly, what questions they raise.While the idea of creating a physical model of the entire universe in one sitting canseem a bit daunting, this activity quickly elicits student ideas and preconceptionsabout the contents and organization of the cosmos. Most students will be somewhatstars to planets, and about the relative distances. The scientist's view of thehierarchical "nested" structure of the universe—planet systems, starWhat You Need: For the class: modeling clay balloons different sized balls andmarbles string scissors straws other odds andends that mightcreating models Copy of Universe Model Analysis Worksheet