Grade 6 Explores Vastness of Space

April 8, 2022

Academics

GNS

The Planet Walk is part of their space unit in science where the students are learning about planets and the vast size of our universe.

Planet Walks aim to show that in reality, the planets are small and the distance between them is always very large. The best way for students to really “see” the distance is to go outside and take a walk.

These young scientists have been calculating the distance between the different planets and the sun, which allows them to see how big space is. This culminated on April 6 when they put their calculations into perspective and experienced the vastness of space by walking the scaled distances.

These are the steps students took while on their Planet Walk.

The Sun to Mercury = 10 paces

Mercury to Venus = 9 paces

Venus to Earth = 7 paces

Earth to Mars = 14 paces

Mars to Jupiter = 95 paces

Jupiter to Saturn = 112 paces

Saturn to Uranus = 249 paces

Uranus to Neptune = 281 paces

“It was really enjoyable because it was interactive and everyone got to do something,” said Juno, adding she would like to go to space, but wouldn’t enjoy the journey there.

Learning about space definitely brought up the topic of space travel with these students, with some saying they would and others saying they wouldn’t want to go.

“I like space, it’s fun, but I would not go to space if I had the opportunity,” added Tess.