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This web app shows the planets’ relative sizes and distances from the Sun. Prepare for a lot of scrolling!
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I was shown this activity by another teacher from Sudbury, Ontario and liked it so much I went out to look for beads that would look something like the different planets. But you don’t have to use beads unless you have them; playdough beads or small Styrofoam balls would work as well. You’ll need about 5 metres of string to have the distances fairly accurate. The distances between the beads are given as part of the activity.
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This is fairly similar to the beads on a rope but simpler for younger students to do. Use cash register tape rolls and have each child have a piece about as long as their arms stretched out.
Colour the Sun at one end and put a whole lot of dots for Dwarf Planets at the other end. (This is where Pluto would be)
Fold the tape in half. Draw Uranus at the fold.
Make two more folds into the centre so there are a total of four sections. Put Neptune between the Dwarf Planets and Uranus and Saturn at the other fold closer to the Sun.
Now take the section between Saturn and the Sun and fold it in half. Draw Jupiter at that fold.
Fold the section between Jupiter and the Sun in half. Put Mars at the fold.
The last fold will be really little and be between Mars and the Sun. Draw the other three planets in there closest to the Sun in the correct order (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. This really shows how close we are to the Sun compared to the outer planets. The link gives a good illustration of the folding of the tape and where to put the planets.
Fold up the whole tape when you are done into a package and you have the Solar System in your pocket.
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This is an activity that comes from the Outreach Box from the BC Museum but there are other versions online as well. You can use a regular toilet roll and have the kids count out 100 squares and lay it down in your hallway. Put the Sun at one end and Neptune at the other end. You can use balls of different sizes, styrofoam balls or play dough balls to represent the planets. Have the students guess as to where the other planets would be compared to the Sun, with Neptune being the end of the solar system of regular planets. Once they have guessed then you can gradually lay each of the other planets in their (relatively) correct placements and prepare to have them be amazed.
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This handy web app helps make a Solar System to scale. Choose how big you want the Sun to be (in inches or millimetres) and see the relative sizes that the planets must be as well as their distances from the Sun. You will quickly learn that it is difficult to make a Solar System where the planets are the size of everyday objects (balls, buttons, popcorn kernels, etc.) and able to fit inside a room with their correct to-scale sizes!
The app will even calculate the distance to some nearby stars, and to the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy as well.
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This web app just accepts that the size of your scaled down model of the Solar System must be really big. Select an object to represent the size of the Sun, and you can see the orbital distances of the planets of a map. Set the map to a familiar location to get a better understanding of how big your model is.
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Find out how old you are on different worlds. By entering a date of birth you can see other measurements of the age of a person, like Martian years, Jovian years, etc. It is fun to imagine if those were Earth years. Most people wouldn’t even be 1 year old on Neptune, and many people would be well into adulthood or beyond on Mercury!
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Activity showing relative Earth-Moon scale using different materials such as bouncy balls, marbles and other spherical objects. Children will explore the size and distance ratio between the Earth and Moon as well as learning how to empirically measure their model to test for accuracy.
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This website demonstrates a fun way to explore how gravity works on different celestial bodies. It visualizes the difference gravity makes in jumping when on the Earth or the Moon.
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This web app shows Newton’s Cannon. This demonstrates escape velocity and how to changes with the force of gravity.
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Create craters by dropping rocks into flour and cocoa. The ejecta pattern is very similar to actual impact craters!
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To demonstrate data collection and analysis, this flipbook has students observe the moon night after night. This creates a visual representation on the moon phases.
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This simulation shows the moon changing its phases as it orbits around the Earth. It allows for the simulation to be sped up or slowed down to understand how the phases change better.
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These teaching plans outlines the cosmic coincidence that allows solar eclipses to happen on Earth. Students can demonstrate how these eclipses happen whilst also understanding how rare the event is. They will build scale models to show how they work.
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Detailed information for the lunar eclipse on March 14 2025. It shows how all lunar eclipses work. The simulation creates a visual of how it works and the breakdown of the total event.
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Simulation of how the Moon affects the tides. It shows how the high tides are always parallel with the Moon, and the Earth rotates through high and low tides within a day.