Intergalactic Planetary
Process
When beginning this project, we were told to make a model of the Solar System using only what we currently knew. Our model pretty much just consisted of the planets in order and their names. Our model was definitely now to scale. For our second model, we were allowed to use resources to get the planets in the Solar System to scale. The planets were now the appropriate size and distance away from the sun. For our third model, we added on to model #2 and wrote the number of moons, orbital period, and rotational period for each planet. This model was colorful, accurate, organized, and much better and more complex than our first model. For our forth model, we looked at a planetary fact sheet and looked for patterns that we notice on it. The pattern me and my partner, Hanna, focused of was distance from the sun vs. orbital velocity. We looked more into this phenomenon and came up with a working equation for it. Unlike our previous models, this one we did on a slideshow. This model had an explanation of our phenomenon, a table of evidence, an explanation of our phenomenon, modifications we made, our model's limitations, predicting the orbital velocity for planet x, and unanswered questions about our phenomenon. For our final model, model five, we had to make a mini poster that had a both front and back. The front contained four phenomenons and a diagram for each phenomenon. The phenomenons tell us how we can predict other phenomenons with certain knowledge. On the back we predicted the orbital period of Earth, planet x, and planet y and the weight of an average person on these planets.
Our Models
Content
Force of universal gravitation: Every object is attracted to every other object is the universe directly proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the distance between them squared. Equation = Fg=GM1*M2/d2 G (the gravitational constant is always equal to 6.67 * 10^-11
Inverse Square Law: the weakening of gravity with distance, the farther away the less gravitational attraction
Tangential Velocity: the "sideways" velocity - the component of velocity perpendicular to the pull of gravity
Scientific Notation: When you don't what to write our a very big, long number or a very small, long number, you use scientific notation.
Orbital Velocity: the velocity of an object that is orbiting another
Reflection
This project was really different than all of the previous projects we've done this year. It was really difficult to think not on a human scale and it's also just hard for me to think about space is general. One thing I think Hanna and I did really good on this project was our communication. We were really good at speaking our mind and letting each other know what we thought. Even if I thought my idea wan't great, I would still say it because I knew Hanna wouldn't judge my ideas or put them down. One example of our communication being good was when I had to leave early for a basketball game and I was gonna miss some work time on our project. So before I left Hanna and I talked about it and split up the work so she would work on it in class (she finished about half) and then I would do the rest for homework. This way Hanna didn't feel like she had to do all of the work but also didn't fell like she was forcing it all on me. Another thing Hanna and I did really good on was collaborating. We both equally split up the work load and we were both leaders. An example of us doing good collaborating was when we were doing our forth model. Before we picked distance from the sun vs. orbital velocity as our phenomenon, our phenomenon was distance from the sun vs. temperature. We tried working through this phenomenon but we couldn't find the right equation so we talked about it and decided to switch phenomenons.
Although Hanna and I did great on this project, there were definitely some downsides. One thing I struggled with on this project was being a critical thinker. It was very hard to think on a space scale instead of a human scale so I had trouble grasping some concepts. Even though Mr. Williams told us not everything in this unit would make sense, I would try to make it make sense which made learning about space hard. Something I can do in the future to prevent this from happening again is going over things we read in our physics book or things we wrote in our physics notebook multiple times until what we are learning starts to stick and make sense. I also want to grow in being a conscientious learner. I was not good about managing my time effectively or setting goals. On model #4 I had to finish a part to our slideshow and I didn't the night model 4 was due. Next project I will try harder to spread out my workload so I don't just do it all at one time.