Race Around the Sun
Which inner planet has the shortest year? Learn the answer and more by building a model to show how Mars, Earth, Venus, and Mercury move around the Sun.
Standards
Idea Sheets are cross-referenced to subjects listed in the Common Core, Next Generation Science Standards, and California Content Standards.
Mathematical Practices: 1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively. 3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. 4. Model with mathematics. 5. Use appropriate tools strategically. 6. Attend to precision. 7. Look for and make use of structure. 8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning. ||Common Core Mathematics||Grade 3||Mathematical Practices|||Mathematical Practices: 1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively. 3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. 4. Model with mathematics. 5. Use appropriate tools strategically. 6. Attend to precision. 7. Look for and make use of structure. 8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning. ||Common Core Mathematics||Grade 4||Mathematical Practices|||4.MD.1. Know relative sizes of measurement units within one system of units including km, m, cm; kg, g; lb, oz.; l, ml; hr, min, sec. Within a single system of measurement, express measurements in a larger unit in terms of a smaller unit. Record measurement equivalents in a two- column table. For example, know that 1 ft is 12 times as long as 1 in. Express the length of a 4 ft snake as 48 in. Generate a conversion table for feet and inches listing the number pairs (1, 12), (2, 24), (3, 36), …||Common Core Mathematics||Grade 4||Measurement And Data||Solve Problems Involving Measurement And Conversion Of Measurements From A Larger Unit To A Smaller Unit|||Mathematical Practices: 1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively. 3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. 4. Model with mathematics. 5. Use appropriate tools strategically. 6. Attend to precision. 7. Look for and make use of structure. 8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning. ||Common Core Mathematics||Grade 5||Mathematical Practices|||Represent data in graphical displays to reveal patterns of daily changes in length & direction of shadows, day & night, & the seasonal appearance of some stars in the night sky.||Next Generation Science Standards||Grade 5||Earth and Space Science||Earth’s Place in the Universe|||5.MD.1. Convert among different-sized standard measurement units within a given measurement system (e.g., convert 5 cm to 0.05 m), and use these conversions in solving multi-step, real world problems.||Common Core Mathematics||Grade 5||Measurement And Data||Convert Like Measurement Units Within A Given Measurement System|||Develop and use a model to describe the role of gravity in the motions within galaxies and the solar system.||Next Generation Science Standards||Middle School||Earth and Space Science||Earth’s Place in the Universe|||Analyze and interpret data to determine scale properties of objects in the solar system. [Examples of scale properties include the sizes of an object’s layers (such as crust and atmosphere), surface features (such as volcanoes), and orbital radius.] ||Next Generation Science Standards||Middle School||Earth and Space Science||Earth’s Place in the Universe|||Construct & present arguments using evidence to support the claim that gravitational interactions are attractive and depend on the masses of interacting objects. ||Next Generation Science Standards||Middle School||Physical Science||Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions |||Mathematical Practices: 1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively. 3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. 4. Model with mathematics. 5. Use appropriate tools strategically. 6. Attend to precision. 7. Look for and make use of structure. 8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning. ||Common Core Mathematics||Grade 6||Mathematical Practices|||6.RP.1. Understand the concept of a ratio and use ratio language to describe a ratio relationship between two quantities. For example, “”The ratio of wings to beaks in the bird house at the zoo was 2:1, because for every 2 wings there was 1 beak.”” “”For every vote candidate A received, candidate C received nearly three votes.””||Common Core Mathematics||Grade 6||Ratios And Proportional Relationships||Understand Ratio Concepts And Use Ratio Reasoning To Solve Problems|||6.RP.2. Understand the concept of a unit rate a/b associated with a ratio a:b with b =? 0, and use rate language in the context of a ratio relationship. For example, “”This recipe has a ratio of 3 cups of flour to 4 cups of sugar, so there is 3/4 cup of flour for each cup of sugar.”” “”We paid $75 for 15 hamburgers, which is a rate of $5 per hamburger.””1||Common Core Mathematics||Grade 6||Ratios And Proportional Relationships||Understand Ratio Concepts And Use Ratio Reasoning To Solve Problems|||6.RP.3. Use ratio and rate reasoning to solve real-world and mathematical problems, e.g., by reasoning about tables of equivalent ratios, tape diagrams, double number line diagrams, or equations.||Common Core Mathematics||Grade 6||Ratios And Proportional Relationships||Understand Ratio Concepts And Use Ratio Reasoning To Solve Problems|||Mathematical Practices: 1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively. 3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. 4. Model with mathematics. 5. Use appropriate tools strategically. 6. Attend to precision. 7. Look for and make use of structure. 8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning. ||Common Core Mathematics||Grade 7||Mathematical Practices|||7.RP.2. Recognize and represent proportional relationships between quantities.||Common Core Mathematics||Grade 7||Ratios And Proportional Relationships||Analyze Proportional Relationships And Use Them To Solve Real-World And Mathematical Problems|||Mathematical Practices: 1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively. 3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. 4. Model with mathematics. 5. Use appropriate tools strategically. 6. Attend to precision. 7. Look for and make use of structure. 8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning. ||Common Core Mathematics||Grade 8||Mathematical Practices|||Mathematical Practices: 1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively. 3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. 4. Model with mathematics. 5. Use appropriate tools strategically. 6. Attend to precision. 7. Look for and make use of structure. 8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning. ||Common Core Mathematics||High School||Mathematical Practices|||Use mathematical or computational representations to predict the motion of orbiting objects in the solar system. [Emphasis: Newtonian gravitational laws governing orbital motions, also apply to satellites.]||Next Generation Science Standards||High School||Earth and Space Science||Earth’s Place in the Universe
4.d. The Earth is one of several planets that orbit the sun, and the moon orbits the Earth.||CA Science||Grade 3||03. Earth Sciences||4. Objects in the sky move in regular and predictable patterns.|||5.b. The solar system includes the Earth, moon, sun, eight other planets and their satellites, and smaller objects such as asteroids and comets.||CA Science||Grade 5||03. Earth Sciences||5. The solar system consists of planets and other bodies that orbit the sun in predictable paths.|||1.2 Construct and read drawings and models made to scale.||CA Mathematics||Grade 7||03. Measurement and Geometry||1.0 Students choose appropriate units of measure and use ratios to convert within and between measurement systems to solve problems.|||4.e. The appearance, general composition, relative position and size, and motion of objects in the solar system, including planets, planetary satellites, comets, and asteroids.||Grade 8||01. Physical Sciences||4. Earth in the Solar System||4. The structure and composition of the universe can be learned from the study of stars and galaxies, and their evolution.
- Earth and Space Science
- Grades 3-5
- Grades 6-8
- Science
- Math