Planet Reports
Planet Reports This is my favorite unit in the course, and I really wish I could be there to watch the reports, help fill in the gaps, and enjoy showing you will the amazing diversity, not only among the planets, but also among the moons of those planets. We owe the majority of our accumulated knowledge of the planets to satellite missions flown by the US and former USSR.
Planet Reports You each have a planet packet. Remember to accurately fill in the data for page one as the presenters share that information with you. Remember also to write notes on the appropriate page. I will be collecting the packets at the end of the final planet report in two weeks from today.
Planet Reports I, and Mrs. DeHaven expect you to be respectful of your classmates as they present. It is not easy to stand in front of a group of students and give an oral report. If you have a question or miss some information, just raise your hand. Otherwise, please be polite and treat the reporters the way you hope you will be treated when it is your turn to get up there.
Planet Reports Today, you will be hearing reports on the planets Mercury and Venus. These are the first two of the four planets that are made up primarily of rock and metal. Jupiter and Saturn are mostly gas, and nearly identical in composition to the Sun. Uranus and Neptune are composed of liquids and gases, while Pluto is more like a giant comet than a planet …made up mostly of ices.
Planet Reports At the end of the Venus report, you will be asked to go online and take a short quiz of 10 questions for each planet. Do the quiz as a class. In other words, the entire class will work together on the quiz answers, and one person from the class will submit the class responses to me from the weblink within my online Astronomy class.
Planet Reports Here are the 10 questions to listen for in the Mercury report. 1) Give a brief description of the physical appearance of Mercury. 2) What is the planet's interior structure? 3) Is there any evidence of present or past geological activity? 4) What is the surface like, and what would it be like to be outside during a Mercury day? 5) What is the atmosphere made of, and what are the conditions in that atmosphere? 6) What is the most prominent feature on Mercury? 7) What spacecraft have visited the planet, and when? 8) What is the mythological origin of this planet's name? 9) What makes manned missions to Mercury so difficult? 10) Earth-based radar has discovered something interesting in the polar craters of Mercury. What was discovered and how might it have gotten there?
Planet Reports Here are the 10 questions to listen for in the Venus report. 1) Give a brief description of the physical appearance of Venus as seen from a telescope. 2) Why is Venus considered Earth's twin? 3) What is it like on the surface of the planet (describe pressure, heat, and rain)? 4) Why should WE concern ourselves with Earth's greenhouse gasses, just because it got bad on Venus? 5) What Russian satellites landed on Venus? 6) What kind of volcanoes are on the surface of Venus? 7) What are the clouds of Venus made of and what is the rain like? 8) What does the Sun do in the Venus sky? Why does it move that way? 9) How fast do the clouds blow high in Venus' atmosphere? 10) What US satellite did the primary mapping of the surface of Venus?
Planet Reports The link to the quizzes are given below: Mercury: http://www.hopkins.k12.mn.us/pages/high/courses/online/astro/forms/solar_system/mercury/mercury_quiz.html Venus: http://www.hopkins.k12.mn.us/pages/high/courses/online/astro/forms/solar_system/venus/venus_quiz.html
Planet Reports If you run out of time on Monday to get to the quizzes or to even finish the Venus report, then you can complete everything on Tuesday. Okay … Mercurian reporters … you’re up!