Our Solar System

“Why do the planets orbit around the sun and how does this affect us?

The Planetsand How they got their names

• All of the planets that are apart of our solar system were named after Roman and Greek gods. All except for our home planet, planet Earth. Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus and Mercury were all given their names thousands of years ago, as these planets were visible to the ancient Romans in the sky without a telescope. (Click on the title, to further investigate the planet names and their order from the sun)

Orbiting the Sun

• All of the planets within the solar system take varying amounts of time to orbit the sun. When a planet completes one single orbit of the sun, it is considered to be that planets year. The further the planets are away from the sun, the longer it takes for that planet to complete an orbit of the sun. Therefore planets years are longer than others. (Click on the title to explore, how long it takes for the planets to orbit the sun)

YOUR TASK.• Using the resources provided to you within

your classroom, create a model of our Solar System. The Sun and each of planets must be labelled and some interesting facts that you have found must be included for each. It is important that you include in your facts, how long each planet takes to orbit the sun (this information, should have been found when visiting the hyperlink on the last slide). Some examples are on following slide.

Project Ideas

• Ask your teacher or teacher aide for help if clarification on the task is needed. You will be given time in class and homework time to complete the project.

Here are some examples.