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Jump to Jupiter

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Participants jump through a course from the grapefruit-sized “Sun,” past poppy-seed-sized “Earth,” and on to marble-sized “Jupiter” — and beyond!

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Provides classroom connections, key concepts, connections to science standards, and additional resources.

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  • Rating 
  • Participants Enjoyed the Activity 
    Participants Learned from This Activity 
    Activity Instructions Were Clear and Easy to Follow 
    Would Recommend 

Related Programming Resources

Related Links Video Clips:
• How big is the solar system?
This video shows relative sizes of the planets and how far they really are from the Sun.

Games, apps, and simulations:
• NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System
Learn about our home planet, our solar system, the universe beyond, and the spacecraft exploring them with this downloadable application
• Video: A Stunning Scale Model of Our Solar System, Drawn in the Desert
On a dry lakebed in Nevada, a group constructed a model by drawing circles in the desert around a 1.5 meter Sun and a marble-sized Earth
• A tediously accurate scale model of the solar system (scroll to explore)
• How big is the solar system?
This video shows relative sizes of the planets and how far they really are from the Sun

Images:
• NASA Solar System Exploration
• Planetary PhotoJournal (NASA/JPL)

NISE Network: Strategies for Approaching Common Misconceptions Around Difficult Scientific Concepts

Other:
Solar System Signs
Originating Source Lunar and Planetary Institute/National Center for Interactive Learning
Updated from LaConte, K., Shupla, C., Shipp, S. (March 2012) “Jump to Jupiter.” Explore! Jupiter’s Family Secrets. Educational product EG-2012-04-021-JPL. NASA Wavelength Digital Library
Related Books
[Suggest a book]
• Everything Space by Helaine Becker and Brendan Mullan
• How to Be a Space Explorer: Your Out-of-This-World Adventure by Mark Brake
• The Planets by Heather Couper, Robert Dinwiddie, John Farndon, Nigel Henbest and David W Hughes

Reviews

 
Rating 
Participants Enjoyed the Activity 
Participants Learned from This Activity 
Activity Instructions Were Clear and Easy to Follow 
Would Recommend 
06/11/2019

Excellent hands-on learning!

Jump to Jupiter was a wild success for my program. Participants were engaged and interested in the content, and were very surprised at how small the planets were relative to the sun (myself included)!
The setup for the program took a little bit of work and the most difficult part was finding a sufficiently big outdoor space to conduct the actual jumping. We ended up having only two kids who wanted to jump all the way to Uranus and Neptune while the rest of the group watched.
Having the participants look back at the sun with each planet they arrived at helped to Put into perspective the distance of the outer planets.
Having everyday objects like salt, pollin, wooden beads and a grapefruit made this program accessible and informational for everyone involved. I would definitely recommend this and do it again! It could also be done as a passive program along the lines of a storywalk!

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Jump to Jupiter

Jump to Jupiter

Participants jump through a course from the grapefruit-sized “Sun,” past poppy-seed-sized “Earth,” and on to marble-sized “Jupiter” — and beyond!