LoudounExtra.com
The Cosmos, Cut to Size
Loudoun Teacher Would Use County To Map the Heavens
By Michael Birnbaum
Friday, May 22, 2009
If Rick Peck gets his way, the orbits of the planets would sweep around an arch 7 1/2 feet tall at Dominion High School in Sterling. A marble-size Pluto would lie two dozen miles away in Round Hill.
The solar system is that vast, which Peck says gets lost when textbooks crunch the whole thing onto one page. So the sixth-grade science teacher at Seneca Ridge Middle School has banded together with other teachers, parents and students to try to build a Loudoun County-size model.
Until recently, their notion of pairing school system with solar system seemed to be going nowhere. School officials had voiced concern that such a model might be too big for anyone to understand the scale, that it would be prohibitively expensive and that it could be a graffiti magnet at various campuses. But this week officials indicated they are warming to Peck's idea.
On paper, an inch-wide sun would render Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars invisible. Jupiter would be 3 millimeters wide — but 15 yards away. Neptune would be a millimeter wide and about a football field off the page.
Astronomers often complain that the public doesn't understand the planets.
Stephen Schneider teaches astronomy at the University of Massachusetts and has written about the need for better models of space. His introductory students don't always impress him.
Photo Gallery
A Hands-on Approach to Teaching Science in Loudoun
Larger Version
At Seneca Ridge Middle School, Edison Rolle, 11 (left), and Taaj Davis, 12, test their foil watershed map with water in Rick Peck's science class. (Tracy A. Woodward)
Larger Version
Science teacher Rick Peck gives his students a sheet of aluminum foil to create a map of rivers with their watersheds. From left, Meera Chauhan, 12; Janera Martinez, 12; Rick Peck; Aly Kamins, 12; and Jillian Kazmierczak, 12. (Tracy A. Woodward)
Larger Version
Seneca Ridge Middle School science teacher Rick Peck uses Google Earth images to discuss our area watersheds. (Tracy A. Woodward)
Larger Version
Seneca Ridge Middle School science teacher Rick Pack discusses the relationship of space with our watersheds. (Tracy A. Woodward)
Larger Version
Seneca Ridge Middle School science teacher Rick Peck calls on a student in his class. (Tracy A. Woodward)
View all thumbnails
"There's not a lot of progression from what they learned in fourth grade," he said. "They get this sense of this crowding."
Even Peck, who has taken astronomy classes and has taught science for 10 years, said he was stumped when he saw a similar solar system model in Switzerland a few years ago.
"I tried to guess where the next planet was, and I was totally off," he said. "I had zero visual sense of the locations and the size of the planets, even though I knew mathematically where they were."
When he flew home (a distance of one-sixth Earth's circumference, or one-sixtieth of the way to the moon), he tore pages out of a map book, slapped them on his classroom wall, and began working with his students to figure out how the solar system would look in Loudoun. Most of the planets, which range in size up to meter-wide Jupiter, could be put on school land. Dominion High would get an arch representing a chunk of the sun (which, with a diameter of 34 feet, would be too big to build in full) and Meadowland Elementary School, also in Sterling, would get a softball-size Earth.
The plans acknowledge marble-size Pluto's recent slip to dwarf-planet status. Another dwarf, Ceres, and an asteroid, Vesta, would get representations as big as pebbles.
Peck and company found support from a few principals and parent organizations, scrounged commitments for almost half of the $45,000 they thought they would need and sent the idea to the school system.
That was two years ago.
INTERNET ENHANCED
Related Link
Related Coverage
Supporters say they feel as though they've been strung along. But several departments have raised concerns, said Loudoun assistant superintendent for instruction Sharon Ackerman. Instruction staff thought computer representations could be just as effective, she said in an e-mail, and support staff thought some of the installations would be too small. Nevertheless, she said, "the project will go forward" if Peck finds the money and agrees to certain conditions.
Dominion High Principal John Brewer said that it was an intriguing idea and that he would play a "willing host" to the sun, so long as it didn't become a maintenance problem.
"We certainly think that Dominion High School is the center of the universe," he joked. "I didn't even realize how bad a typical scale model of the solar system is."
In Peoria, Ill., another scale model, this one 40 miles from sun to Pluto, has become a tourist attraction since it was built in 1992. The museum that maintains it runs a yearly planetary race and bike ride, and once fielded a call a week from curious astronomy fans around the globe.
"You can't talk about it or teach it unless it really exists. It's just not the same," said Peoria model-builder Sheldon Schafer, vice president of education at Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences. (He's also official "curator of the solar system.")
"And it works even if people visit just one or two of them. Just knowing the towns where it exists really gives it credibility as a teaching tool," he said.
A much smaller model on the Mall — with metal pylons that run between the National Air and Space Museum and the Smithsonian Castle, with an Earth the size of the head of a pin — opened in 2001. Those in charge of the exhibit say it's proved a popular destination. Several cities around the country have even plunked down $250,000 for reproductions.
After two years, the stars seem to have realigned for the Loudoun solar system. Ackerman met with Peck and his crew Monday and gave initial approval to the project. Peck said he hopes to build it by mid-2010. "I don't think long-term," he said. "I think: next year's kids."
Copyright 2009 The Washington Post Company
