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Solar System Projects for High School Students

The solar system offers students a huge range of different topics to study, such as how it was formed, comparing the different planets' moons and building simple models of it. Some of these projects will be suitable for a science fair. Because there are so many different areas to explore, students can put together a project that has not been seen by judges too many times before.

Solar System Model
- Solar system models can decorate the whole classroom.
  
  Students can use different sized foam balls, which are available from craft shops, to make their own solar system model. Reference pictures can be used for painting each foam ball, which can then be suspended on wire in front of a black background. Although it may be impossible to create the model so it is completely to scale, students can research information on each of the planets in the solar system, such as size and environment and display that information on the black background of the model. Accurate orbital information should also be researched and incorporated into the display.
Slingshot
- Planetary gravity can be used to boost the speed of a spacecraft, creating a slingshot effect to help direct the spacecraft to where it needs to be. Students should study this process and describe exactly how it works and how it could be used in the future. This is a very useful, rounded project for students as it includes different educational subjects, as well as astronomy. For example, mathematical formulas and calculations will be used, along with Excel spreadsheets to analyze the collected data. For a science project, all calculations and processes should be displayed.
Luna and Io
- This picture shows a volcanic explosion on Jupiter's moon, Io.
  
  Luna is Earth's moon, and Io is one of Jupiter's moons. Students should study these two moons and ascertain how they differ from each other and how they are alike. This can be a fascinating project because Luna and Io and incredibly similar in some respects and incredibly different in others. These dissimilarities are caused by gravitational stresses. Instruct students to create scale drawings of Luna, Earth, Io and Jupiter. They can then use their drawings to discuss the differences between the two moons, as well as to address topics such as how orbital speed is affected by gravity.
Solar System Formation
- According to the website "Cool School," the sun and planets were all formed around 4.6 billion years ago. Orbiting the sun are the terrestrial planets: Earth, Mars, Venus and Mercury and the Jovian planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. For this project, students will investigate how the sun and planets were formed and the structure of the solar system. Other aspects to investigate include how the solar system differentiated into the sun and all the other bodies and what happened to the leftover debris in the solar system.

Astronomy