THE SOLAR SYSTEM ON A CD: AN ASTRONOMY LEARNING OBJECT

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to contribute to Astronomy teaching through a learning object made of a low-cost material, namely a Compact Disc (CD). We have chosen it because it is an alternative to the use of other materials of difficult access, because of its presence in the daily life and because we believed it could promote the engagement of students in a practical activity in the classroom. The CD can be used as a tool to build distances in scale and to compare distances between planets in the Solar System. We had students of Elementary and Middle School as our target audience and the goal of our approach was to bring to the classroom the following astronomy-related topics: distance units used on astronomical scales, particularly the astronomical unit (UA); construction and comparison of distances in scale and definition of the Solar System. In this paper, we also presented activities involving CDs that could be approached by teachers in the classroom.