Just+how+big+are+we?

This page will be used to build up a picture of our relative size. The process will spread over most of the project and will encourage discussion at each step although after a time size gets so big that it is almost incomprehensible. This is the edge we should walk along. You might like to develop this like a timeline in your classroom. The online project is going to look at things that get bigger. As a parallel project in class you could explore the idea of things getting small eg if you work out the volume of an individual (average), on Day two look at something that is approximately half that volume, on Day Three approximately half again. Describe each thing and put them up alongside the getting bigger timeline.

Day One (Friday 5 June) is to post a picture of one of the children - on their own in the school grounds. A class discussion at this stage should centre around the idea that i am really big when I am compared with? Great to start with two special people (Hi John and Liam) over the next three weeks we are going to look at things that gradually get bigger than John and Liam. In you classroom you might get a chance to think about thinks getting smaller. I love the idea of John being bigger than the raindrops that are obviously falling around him (is does sometimes rain in Woodville. Is there a world in those raindrops? Mr K //(Please size each image so it is less than 100Kb and post it after this block of text - at the same time email a copy to Mr K as an attachment)// This is John from Woodville.He is bigger than the rain drops.

Day Two (Monday 8th June) Take a picture of the class - probably in the same place in the school. Compare the volume that the class takes versus the individual. A recent advertisement had a person being folded up into a box - what would be the dimensions of a box to hold the individual pictured in Day One? the class as pictured in Day Two? Put this after your images. //(Please size each image so it is less than 100Kb and post it after this block of text - at the same time email a copy to Mr K as an attachment)//

Day Three (9 June) Take a picture of your classroom - same rules - work out its cubic capacity. So what percentage of the class space does an individual take up? You could fit heaps more into your classroom!! I happened to be in a school today and they had a cubic metre made out of rolled up newspapers - wow it looked big. I wonder if you melted your class would they fit in a container this size? How many cubic metres is your classroom??  Room five at Woodville is trying to work out how many children will fit in our class? John weighs 39 kgs. We think the average child in our class will weigh 30kg. Did you know. 1 kg equals one litre of water. This green container holds 30 litres or 30 Kgs. It is the same as the average child in our class. How many green containers will fit in our class? Our class has a very high roof, how are we going to measure this class? (Did you know this is the oldest classroom in use in New Zealand?)

Day 4 (10 June) Grab a Google earth picture of your school (Greytown one will do 8-}) think about your size in relation to this.

 Ok so here we have Tiniroto and Greytown. Just how big are we an individuals in relation to our school?

How are we getting on looking at our size is relation to where we are.m Today we are in Appleby (one of our schools) and we are thinking about places approximately 100 kms away. Think about travelling that far - short or long? How long to walk, car, plane?



Ok if we were based in Martinborough and we travelled approximately 1000 kilometres north or 1000 kilometres south we would cover the length of NZ. This would pretty much mean that Martinborough was the center of NZ?? Wee seem to have lost the picture so here it is again.

Here is Ihimaera from Peria School. Ihimaera is BIG compared to the leaves on the ground. He is TALLER than the grass. He is BIGGER than the words and the taniwha on the sign, and the squares on the fence.

Here is Te Awa class from Peria School. We’re as WIDE as the piece of fence, and WIDER than the sign. We’re all BIGGER than Thatcher the dog! (who likes to visit us) Chahana and T.K are nearly as tall as the fence. Lots of people are taller than Ihimaera. Only one person and the dog are shorter J. We were inspired by your idea about the Vodafone ad Innes, so we traced around Ihimaera, cut him out and folded him up into a wee square! He originally measured 130cm tall or 1.3m. We managed to fold him up into a square that measured 10 cm by 7 cm! Here are some photos, including Ihimaera squeezing himself into his pocket! We estimated that we made him 13 times smaller! Wow Ihimaera what a tiny box for a big boy - if we 'melted' the whole class how big a box would that be. What you did reminds me of flat Stanley. Now think about how big you are when you look at increasing distances shown on this page.

We did melt the whole class by this same method. It invoked a whole lot of thoughtful measurement ideas. One person said, "You convince yourself that you're really short, but when you are looking down on yourself, you look much taller and way bigger." We squashed ourselves into a box 450cm square. Te Awa also found out how many people would fit in an area 1 metre square. 16 people squashed in! Then we worked out the area of our classroom, and found out that 1,109 people could fit in our classroom minus the furniture! We had fun with metre rulers and measuring tape!

Ok today we are going to start looking outside NZ (there are times we think NZ is large) and thinking of ourselves in relation to things getting further or bigger.

Let's get outside our space. This is a 'picture' of Earth with NZ in the middle. What is the diameter of the Earth? Think about speed and distance travelled. What is its circumference (at the Equator!!!) You can add your wonderings here. This is Tom from Greytown school he is heaps bigger than a Kowhi tree leaf. Wow Tom is big but how big is he in relation to the Earth? Ok let's look at our huge Earth and compare it to the moon. The diameter of the moon is approximately one quarter of the Earth's but then it is 400000 kilometres away! This is pretty much to scale! You might try marking it on the court. Now let's start to look a little beyond the Earth. For some this might be planning as part of the 1Km walk.

I know that Pluto is not seen as a member of the planetary system any more - I have left it in for sentimental reasons. Pluto is a little smaller than our moon. What do you know about these planets?

I think a way to measure yourself is by getting into a box is to fill a get a hundred litre container fill it with water and watch it over flow because you need to fill it up so that this can happen then when you get out of the water the amount that is gone from the container will be the amount of space you will need to fit into a box. Tyla, Pongaroa Tyla the idea of using water as a measure is brilliant as it can be captured and measure easily. The trouble might be getting the person into the water!!

OK now we have looked at the inner planets - the rocky ones - let's look at the size of the gas planets. 

Now we get into things that get bigger than my brain can really understand. When i think about John and the box he will fit into I don't even try and imagine how many of those will fit into the sun. Did you know that 109 Earths fit across the Sun's equator. Or if we go back to out Earth / Moon model where the Earth is 400000 km from the moon that is one third of the distance across the sun. WOW

OK onwards and bigger

Ok. OK it doesn't stop there!! Can you find some of these stars?

Right all of these stars are in our galaxy the Milky Way. Our galaxy is a pretty normal spiral one. We are near the outside of one of the spiral arms. The Milky Way is about 100000 light years across. That means that the light from the stars on the other side of our galaxy left its sun 80 to 100 thousand years ago. There are billions of stars (suns0 in our galaxy. Each one is roughly 4-10 light years apart.

And now from John and Liam to the Universe. Each of the light 'spots' you can see in this picture is a galaxy. There are billions of them. In terms of galaxies ours is a smallish one. In our galaxy our sun is a small one. In our solar system we are a small planet. On our planet NZ is a small place. In NZ the place we live is rather small two. Our school is a small part of that. Our classroom is a part of that (small for some bigger for others). And finally we are a small part of our class.

But we are big, even, huge, in relation to some things.

I need to think about that.