Provide a roll of toilet paper for each group of three or four students. Students will create construction paper cut-outs of planets to represent those in our solar system. Place a sun cut-out in the first square of toilet paper. Establish a realistic scale of miles for the class to use. Because Mercury, the closet planet is almost 36 million miles away and Neptune, the farthest planet is over 2 billion miles away, each inch should equal at least 10 to 20 million miles. Students will use the scale to figure out how far each planet is from the sun. They will measure the distance from the paper sun and glue the proper planet cut-out in the appropriate place. For more advanced students, have students determine the diameter of each planet compared to the diameter of the sun before they make their cut-outs. This project will also reinforce sixth grade geometry lessons on scale.
Planet presentations will be prepared by sixth grade students working with partners. At the end of the unit on astronomy, each team will be assigned a specific planet. Students will create a mural, mobile or computer presentation that teaches about the planet they were assigned. Each student team will share the learning project and present the material to the class to reinforce the material the class has already covered. The teacher can use this project as an effective assessment tool.
Create a class wiki page about space. Check resources for an example of a sixth grade wiki page. Not all wikis are public; create a password so only your students can change the information on the page. Provide each student with questions to research. Include questions about black holes, asteroids, nebulae and all things astronomy. As the student finds and verifies each answer, he will add the information to the wiki page. Allow students to create their own questions, either for themselves or for each other. Students can enter their information at school or, using the site password, they can add information at home.
Combine the disciplines of art and English to create a science book of poetry. Students will gather information about heavenly bodies. Using watercolors, the students will paint pictures of the space objects on heavy-duty watercolor paper. Students will compose poems that contain factual information related to their pictures. Collect all of the student's work and have the pages bound to make a book. Either the teacher or the local office supply store can make the book. Display the finished product in the class, where your students can enjoy the works created by their classmates and themselves.