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There's room for all God's little creatures -
right next to the mashed potatoes

Gee, it's like saying, "Hey, fat kid, you can be Earth by yourself." Seems a sort of mean way to highlight the fact (kids are so mean to eachother). Actually, I think lessons such as those are very useful and stick in kids' minds better. When I was young I had a hard time grappling with what millions of miles really meant.

The link in my signature gives a good sense of the Earth's size to the Sun. Makes me feel small...very small.

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Sunset

Die Sonne scheidet hinter dem Gebirge. In alle Täler steigt der Abend nieder
mit seinen Schatten, die voll Kühlung sind.

Ummm ...
My worry is for the "smallest child in the school" who gets to be Pluto. But at least they're not trying to incorporate the orbit sizes into the model, or that little kid would be on a long bus journey ...

Grant Hutchison

It wouldn't have to be that bad. If the loner-goth kid who got to be pluto and its moons were 100 yards away from the Sun-guy, the kid playing Mercury would still be giving the Sun some personal space.

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Forming opinions as we speak

But if the sun is 109 kids across (as the lesson-plan says) and everything is to scale, then the little kid is going to have to be somewhere around 400,000 kids away: a couple of hundred kilometres, depending on the mean diameter of a kid.

Grant Hutchison

You're right. I skimmed and didn't read. again. Doh!

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Forming opinions as we speak

Yeah...I know they want to get the kids involved, but it does seem like an "ill-conceived" idea...what is so wrong with using peas, grapes, oranges, grapefruits...etc. to represent the sizes of the Planets...

...then I noticed this line...

Publicity??

Actually, that might be a fun way to do the project, and not that hard with the internet and webcams. Find schools across the country and get them to represent the outer planets!

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

If I asked my principal if I could use over 100 kids to teach a lesson, I know what his reply would be.


"Ummm No."