I found this educational website, which involves solar system scales. It is one that isn't too flashy, doesn't have much to catch the eye, but does do what it should. Simply type in the diameter of the sun you'd like to have and then it calculates the sizes for the other solar system objects and their distances. If you don't have any idea of what size you'd like to start with, just guess and see if your choice is feasible. I'll most likely make use of this to alter my outdoor SS scale that I do. I start the students making scale planets with the earth having a 10cm radius and Jupiter having a 140cm(roughly) radius. This works pretty well, but my outdoor scale, to demonstrate the vast distances of space is a little lacking. We get through the inner planets and our moon OK but run out of room around Saturn. This site could be helpful.
It's definitely designed for a purpose or to meet a need. There's nothing fancy but it works. I guess that makes it qualify as a good web site. I think my 8th graders could also figure out how to use it, although most wouldn't fully grasp the output.
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Hi Mark, this is Joe (TA)
Whenever I see something about solar system scales, I think of the Gainesville Solar Walk on 8th Ave (http://www.floridastars.org/solarwalk/solarwalk.html)
It is a mile stretch of road that has the planets arranged at the proper distance scale. There are monuments to each planet, but they don't have the scale models of each. The schools take kids on a walk there from time to time.
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