Milky Way Galaxy

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

This morning we each decorated a moon to hang up in our classroom. We could choose to create a full moon or a crescent moon. We wrote an interesting fact that we had learned about the Moon on the back. Taylor and Austin liked decorating their moons with glitter.

When we were finished with our moon, we made a "Sun bracelet." We used a pipecleaner and a yellow, white, red, blue, green, and brown bead to create our bracelets.
In the afternoon we discussed what the sun bracelet stood for. The yellow bead stands for the Sun. The white bead stands for the light that the Sun gives the Earth. The red bead is for the heat the Sun gives Earth. The Sun gives us heat and lights so humans and animals can exist. This is what the brown bead stands for. The water of Earth is the blue bead and the green bead is the land. Emmitt's favorite thing about the sun is that solar flares burst from the sun. Andrea's favorite thing about the sun is that it has the most gravity.
This afternoon we talked about galaxies. We learned that each star is a part of a galaxy. There are millions and even trillions of stars in each galaxy! We live in the Milky Way Galaxy. There are several types of galaxies - Spiral, Spiral Barred, Irregular, and Elliptical. Each type has a core that is where the most stars are located.
We learned that a light-year is the distance light travels in one year. The Milky Way Galaxy is about 100,000 light-years wide, but our solar system is only about 1.5 light-years wide. Here is a neat video that shows the journey from Earth to the Milky Way Galaxy! This was Jacob I's and Austin's favorite video today.
•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm-ucbDVyRU
Our Mission was to create our own galaxy. Here are pictures of our finished galaxies! :)