Iron County Record | 1955-04-28 | Page 12 | Solar System Study Completed by Fourth Grades Students

Solar System Study . Completed by Fourth Grade Students Mrs. Ila Sherratt, fourth grade instructor at the North Elementary Elemen-tary in Cedar City, and Jay Heat-en, Heat-en, practice teacher from the College of Southern Utah, have just completed a course in the study of the Universe in their class. Culmination of the study was Friday afternoon when parents of the children were invited to the class room for a tour of inspec-, tion of charts, an observatory,' and a reconstructed solar system. In order that the children might learn more about the universe than through the old time method of lecture, the students planned, built and observed the complications complica-tions of the universe. Our own solar system, including includ-ing the Sun as the orbit and all of the planets, was constructed construct-ed to show approximately what the solar system comprized Paper mache was used for the planets and they were built in proportion to their respective sizes. An observatory was constructed construct-ed by the class in which the roof was designed to show the children child-ren the four major constellations of the universe. The dome contained con-tained a light and a blue cloth stretched in front with the constellation, con-stellation, or stars, placed in their respective positions for pasy identification by the children. Only the constellations were included in-cluded without the confusion of other stars as they are seen at night. However, the children report re-port that after seeing them in their observatory they have been able to pick them out at night. In connection with the progressive pro-gressive type of study several of the" children developed their creative writing abilities with such stories as "Saturn and Myself," My-self," and "Rocket trip to Polaris."