Take the bus to Mars
By SHARON KERR Staff Writer

When science teacher Howard Bailey began planning a mile-long model of the solar system for Jasper's Azalea Fest, the solar system still had nine familiar planets, as it has ever since Pluto was discovered in 1930.

This year astronomers dismissed Pluto from the immediate family of planets, demoting it to a Kuiper belt object.

Asked if it would be included in the Jasper Junior High display, Bailey replied, "Well, it's still there."

So, yes, Pluto will be visible at the intersection of U.S. Highway 190 and Houston Street. Starting at the outer edges of the solar system, each planet will be a true-to-scale distance from the Sun, shining at the JJHS campus.

The planets themselves will not be scale sized, or else you would need a magnifying glass to see most of them.

The art department made papiermâché planets using beach balls. Students painted and decorated each planet to resemble NASA photos. Saturn has swirling clouds as well as rings, and Jupiter has a red spot that is thought to be a hurricane as large as the entire Earth.

To allow visitors to fully appreciate the display, the Jasper Independent School District will run bus tours from 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. March 17. Student guides will point out the highlights of Venus and Mars.

At the school's activity booth on the courthouse square, there will be another model with planets scaled to size. However, the display most likely to bring the weight of worlds home will be a simple array of coke cans.

With Earth represented by a full can of coke, each of the other cans is weighted according to the gravity of that world. Pluto is an almost empty can, but pick up Jupiter carefully or you will hurt yourself. Yes, it did require a trick to weight it properly, and the students will be glad to explain how they did it.

The most fun is reserved for young children, according to Bailey. They will be invited to a paper plane folding contest. The catch is that they are blindfolded and must follow directions from junior high mentors to make the planes.

At a recent practice session, Yuma Morris aced the first test run, but it was following directions he had helped to write.

When Bailey folded a different model and asked the students to tell blind-folded Yuma how to make something he had never seen, it was a lot tougher.

"Remember," Bailey said, "you'll be giving directions to little kids who may never have folded a plane before. You've got to really think how to describe what you want them to do."

Kids can also make rockets powered by soda straws.

Bailey said this entire project was "teacher initiated, student driven... They've done everything. Teachers were hands-off. We just provide the resources."

Dianne Pace's class assisted with writing brochures using Publisher. Students competed to make their planet the most interesting. Where several versions were submitted, students voted on the content of the brochure.

The brochure was the creative work of Glenn Barber, Dillon Bryer, Lacy Dry, Alfredo Gonzalez-Lopez, Vannessa Gonzalez, Josh Horn, Brittany Land, Justin Mays, Jaclyn Meyers, Brad Miller, Jack Norman, Allison Plunk and Taylor Young.