Astronomy "Craft"?

Admittedly when I first heard they wanted the Cub Scouts to do a “craft” at the Planetarium event on Astronomy I was a little disappointed. A paper-mache planet, glue some stars on a chart, something with popsicle sticks?

But what they ended up with was pretty cool, and it made them think a bit (and maybe learn something). It was kind of like a friendship bracelet, but really just beads on a nylon string.

The first bead was gold and represented the Sun. Then they put a black bead to represent the amount of space between the sun and Mercury. Then Mercury (white bead), one more space, Venus (clear bead), one more space, then Earth (blue clear bead).

But now it starts to get interesting – two black beads before Mars (red) – two more before the Asteroid belt (green) – two more before Jupiter. Then four black space beads before Saturn (yellow), eight before Uranus and eight more before Neptune. Done.

Where’s Pluto – that’s right, got demoted to “dwarf planet” (not only that it is the 2nd biggest dwarf planet after “Eris” – Pluto is now the 10th largest body orbiting the Sun). I still can’t get used to that, but the Planetarium people are all over it.

So in the end it is actually a pretty cool thing – helps them remember the planets and learn something about how they are spaced out.