Wow! Today we asked our students to draw a picture of our solar system before we began our new unit. In their picture they should have included anything they knew about the system around us. We were expecting that a fair amount of students would be able to list the planets in order, understanding the sun was in the center. Maybe a few would know the planets were not all the same size and have some idea of their characteristics. Boy, did we underestimate their knowledge. Here is a list of responses we recieved:
- Saturn and Neptune have rings
- Saturn's rings go around its equator while Neptune's go around its poles
- Pluto is a dwarf planet
- We have 4 inner and 4 or 5 outer planets
- An asteroid belt serparates the inner and outer planets
- Jupiter is the largest planet
- Jupiter's volume is large enough to fit all the other planets inside
- We live in the Milky Way Galaxy
- Pluto is in or near the Kuiper Belt
- Our moon causes our tides
- Planets revole and rotate
- Mercury has a very hot side and a very cold side
- Jupiter is a gas giant
I think we will need to revise our lessons!
