Wikijunior talk:Solar System/Archive 1

content format
So how is the content of the articles going to be created? is going to be like a copy/paste job with some editing to make the content easier to understand or are we writing completly fresh articles? --Larsie 19:48, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I really think we should start afresh. It will be much easier IMO to write for children from the start, than it would be to copy and paste from Wikipedia and them simplify the text. Children texts shouldn't (IMO) be just simpler versions of adult texts minus the long words. Theresa knott 20:07, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * We should, however, take advantage of the tables and images, perhaps modifying and simplifying them for kids. Danny 20:09, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Glossary
How would you all feel about a glossary at the end of the book. For instance, speed of light, satellite, etc. Danny 20:09, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * In my opinion, a glossary is essential for a children's non-fiction work. Angela 20:12, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * That's very sensible. Many educational texts highlight the first instance of "keywords" in a different colour, so that children know that this is a new word that they may not have come across. The colour clues them up to the fact that this word is in the glossary. Theresa knott 20:15, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

totally agree with theresa, any bolded text in the booklets should be added to the glossary, so children can then easily reference them. also has a name been chose aside from wikijunior? --Larsie 20:55, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * No not yet. We just using wikijunior as a working title until we do decide on a name. Theresa knott 21:12, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Do you want to write your own definitions for the Glossary of link/copy an online dictionary? I linked the 1st three definitions to Wikipedia, but you might also want to write out a simplified defination on the page relating to what the term refers to. --DesertFox_59 {X} 20:48, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I think we should have our own glossary, writen with children in mind. Theresa knott 08:49, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

additional articles
i beleive we should include articles on the kuiper belt and oort cloud as they are integral parts of our solar system. for example it is now known that pluto is not in fact a planet but a 'mini planet' that was pulled toward neptune by its gravity from the kuiper belt. see discover magazine nov issue. i've been planning to update the wikipedia article with this and other info. --Larsie 21:05, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I agree. We do have to be careful about very recent information though. It's good to have the latest info, but we must make sure it's solid. New theories sometimes turn out to be wrong. Having said that having new stuff will make our booklets stand out from the crowd. I want our work to not only by cheaper, but also better than the competition. It'll be difficult to get things perfect, but that's no reason not to try. Theresa knott 17:41, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Format
before i acually get started is there any particular format that we should be following for the categories? --Larsie 17:02, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Start with a couple of lines as an intro, then use the standard questions as a heading titles. Check out the Nasa website for a wealth of images - go for the largest ones available and thumbnail them down to a better size for the webpage. (the larger images are needed for the print verion) Theresa knott 17:43, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

i'm sorry but how exactly would i go about bringing the image over also to format it?--Larsie 18:17, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I've replied on my talk page. Try getting the image you want first. I'll teach you how to format it later. Theresa knott 20:11, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Images
Are we allowed to add images from NASA? What are the copyright issues with images from other internet sites? --StarHawk 11:45, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I defineatly think we need to add as many images as possible to these modules unfortuneatly i can't but i'm sure someone else can. --Larsie 17:16, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm adding images from NASA right now. Plus i'm drawing diagrams. Theresa knott 20:54, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Content
Shouldn't there be something about how the planets were discovered? I could see this being done in two different ways. One would be to have a brief blurb for each planet or other body telling who discovered it and when, and maybe an interesting detail or two on how it was discovered. The other approach would be to have a separate article about how our knowledge of the solar system has grown over time, and how we know what we know. I lean slightly to the latter. Isomorphic 18:49, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * That's a shame because I lean towards the former :-( Theresa knott 20:53, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Mine wasn't a strong leaning. We should have some historical material included, but how it's organized isn't that important.  I just wanted to make sure there's some mention of people like Galileo, and maybe a bit about the various space probe programs (Mariner, Voyager, etc.) Isomorphic 00:06, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

In the list of questions, there is a question asking about the length of the planets' days. Shouldn't there also be a question about the length of their years? I saw the year lengths given under the header about the day length, so I fixed the numbers. --StarryTG 03:57, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * That was a goof of mine. I misread something somewhere. Good catch though. -- Bobdoe 04:52, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * I added a question about the year length. --StarryTG 21:27, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

As to the possible addition of a box with information about the particular God/Goddess the planet was named after, shouldn't there also be a mention of why that planet was named after that particular deity? i.e. Mars = Red = War. Mercury = Fast orbit = Speed, etc etc. -- Asbestos 01:16, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes, I'd think so. Lyellin 01:19, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I've added a couple more sentences to the mythology on the Mercury page. It's just a start, but I think these secions should start heading in that direction. -- Asbestos 00:53, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I've added a "mythology box" to the Mercury page (a short one that could cetainly be expanded in the future). I think such asides are good additions to the modules, and can be used for any kind of interesting trivia. -- Asbestos 20:49, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I like that idea- In general I agree that if we can do an aside like that, we should. Lyellin 20:52, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Dot points
Just from browsing through what you guys are doing, it seems a bit all over the place (i know it is still very early days, so dont flame me) just having so many questions/headings with no clear reason from going from one to the next. I think that having too many unrelated questions with short answers somewhat jepodises the flow of the text. Anywho this is the attitude of an 18 yr old not a 7-12 yr old, maybe its perfect for them, i just thought that id mention it. Anywho, looks like you guys are progressing preety fast (or at least faster than us over at south america), so best of luck. The bellman 01:02, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * The answers are short because it's very early days. As time goes on we will give more detailed answers. We can always tidy up later. We need to concentrate on getting information on the page at the moment. Theresa knott 06:14, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sizes
I worry that the description of sizes is going to go over our targeted age groups head's. We say a lot of big numbers/units which are accurate, but are they going to have a frame of reference to figure out what those really mean? Is there some way to simplify this down so a 7 year old could understand it. (Wishing I was at home and knew where all the Magic school bus books taht we had are). Lyellin 18:31, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I say leave them in (children won't have trouble realising "this planet is 10 times larger than that one") but place some references to real things. Sport grounds seem to be popular for this. (Rugby for USA, football (soccer) for UK?) r3m0t (cont) (talk) 20:12, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * As the person who's written what people are copying and pasting for the size content, I must say that comparing planet sizes to real, easily perceivable things is a must for any educational children's book. Sports fields seem ideal for this sort of thing, but are quite localized. American football, for instance, isn't very popular outside America. Should we settle on a standard field or leave it up to the localization crew? -- [[User:Bobdoe|Bobdoe (Silence)]] 07:10, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * American sportsfields are far too small a unit of measurement. We needsomething much bigger. Theresa knott 10:06, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * There must be something... how many kids have been to airports? Very few in Africa. Hmmph. r3m0t (cont) (talk) 15:10, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I've been thinking on this. If American football fields are about the same size as real football fields ;-P then although it's too small "football field" would at least be internationally recognised. For larger areas "The size of Africa" might be the way to go as most children would probably recognise that. Theresa knott 19:14, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * We couold try using city blocks, although it may not help for kids that don'y live in cities. --Larsie 19:47, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

we should make units of measurement language specific. ya airports for kids in africa maybe not keep in mind that the children in africa are going to be reading the french, portuguese, or even african language versions. we may be able to leave the units of measurement out or aplicable to change for the translations. --Larsie 19:52, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm not entirely sure about that, specifically in the case of African countries, where many countries' national languages are either French or English (ditto, South American countries are Spanish or Portuguese). Are we going to come out with different issues for each country, or is the French version going to come out in all francophone countries? --Asbestos 17:55, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Try to give some sort of easy context or comparison for any number. I just read over Mercury and noticed that we were telling kids to multiply 0.378 times their weight. Now, I don't remember when I learned to multiply with decimel points, but even if a kid can it won't be simple and intuitive. For now I left the exact number and put an explanation, but I think it would be better to say that you'd weigh a little more than one third what you do on earth and leave it at that. Remember, this isn't a textbook. Understanding is more important than precision. Isomorphic 15:03, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Indeed. Just earlier I had changed similar phrases on that page that said the diameter was 0.385 (or whatever) times the diameter of the Earth. I simplified that to what it is now, but think we should start doing some standardization on this issue. -- Asbestos 17:52, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Do we have any policy on whether numbers should always be written using numbers, or whether to include words as well? For instance, on the Sun page, I noted that "The sun is 150,000,000 km away." Do we expect kids to understand so many zeros (and, of course, even more for something like "Pluto is about 6,000,000,000 km away from the sun)?

For the latter example, I'd say it would make sense to say "six billion." But "one hundrd and fifty million" is a little more of a mouthful (in the first example). Another possibility would be "150 millon." But how, if at all, should this be standardized? -- Asbestos 17:44, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Article of the Week
Should each of the wikibooks have an AOTW, to encourage research on that article. It would in no way preclude efforts on other articles, but I think all three could benefit from a bit of focus (although this one is by the best off). Perhaps to start, Brazil for South America, Lion for Cats, and Earth for Solar? Lyellin 01:08, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I think it's a good idea but it's perhaps a bit too early for that. We are still finding our feet at the moment. When we have some rough text on nearly every page, we could have an article of the week to whip them into good shape? Theresa knott 06:38, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * *shrugs* I was just thinking an AOTW in order to get proper info on each page. Really depends on philosophy- do you want AOTW to be an edit tool or a contect tool- doesn't bother me either way... just proposing the idea. Lyellin 06:39, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * It could be for either I suppose. Actually scrap my earlier suggestion, it's probably a good idea. Anything that encorages people to contribute can't be a bad thing. Theresa knott 21:36, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * How does this look? Template:WJAOTW Lyellin 20:28, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Looks good! Theresa knott 21:34, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Solar System
With all these pages on the planets, is there no page on the solar system as a whole? How it was formed, when it was formed, diagrams, orbits, etc.? I don't know if this has been discussed elsewhere, but I think that it is certainly needed (along with an overall introduction). -- Asbestos 00:53, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * It's there in the list of other articles. It's just that no one has started it yet. Feel free to go ahead yourself. Theresa knott 10:02, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Completely missed it - I was only looking at the list at the top... Thanks, -- Asbestos 10:09, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia links
Do we have a policy on linking to Wikipedia articles? I haven't seen any such links in any articles yet, but would think that this would be a good idea. It would encourage interested readers to pursue information further and more in depth, and provide them with a very good introduction to wikipedia. (Note: If what we're doing here is only for the print version, excuse my confusion. There's to be an online section as well, though, right?) -- Asbestos 00:53, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * There will be a printed booklet and a website (not here) for kids. Since this is intended for young kids I'm not sure linking to a wikipedia article is a good idea. What we could do, as well as bolding words for a glossary is link those words to a section of an online glossary instead. Theresa knott 10:02, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I think that we should include "read more in Wikipedia" links too. Ausir 18:24, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Links within Wikijunior I don't think are a problem (it helps with on-line navigation and the overall experience when seeing it in web-form), but I would have to agree with Teresa knott to suggest it is not a good idea for general links, unless the full URL is displayed (even with Wikipedia), and even then it should be "For More Information" or something like that at the end of the article/module. The hyperlinks in the glossary are, IMHO, something that needs to go. Rob Horning 13:58, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

How can I help?
As I posted on the main Wikijunior Interested Participants page, I would like to help if I can. I work in the NASA Office of Education. Thus, I have access to people and a pretty good contact list of people who may want to volunteer here. I'll try to spend some time reading through this soon to see how we might help. In the meantime, please let me know if there is anything we may be able to do for the project. Visit NASA Education for some examples of what we do. --Jason@NASA 21:44, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
 * That's great! This project has unfortunately become a bit stagnant.  We could use some new editors, and anyone you'd like to refer would be welcome.  Isomorphic 02:37, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

I can help, too. I am great at researching facts. But I see there are plenty of people here to do that. Instead, I would like to offer to: I will not offer to "punch up" the text, because I think others are better at that. I am afraid I have already done some work. So now I will ask permission to continue...
 * Reword sections for a consistant reading comprehension level. I would probably run one paragraph at a time through the checks in Word, and rewrite to get consistancy.
 * Add in-text definitions. Like body, which, to an 8-year-old, implies the human body.
 * Work on consistant usage. Like planet vs. world.

--SV Resolution 00:34, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Expanding sections on larger moons
Due to planetary space probes, a considerable amount of information is now available on many of the larger moons of the outer planets.

What I am proposing is that perhaps we could expand this Wikibook to cover at least some of the larger moons of some of the planets, notably the Gallelian moons of Jupiter, Titan, Triton, and perhaps Phobos and Deimos. The Earth's moon already rates a seperate article, so why not some of these other moons?

From the perspective of a 10 year old reading this, I think it is facinating that there are these whole new worlds that you can learn about. And there has been quite a bit of insight gained from studying these moons that apply back here to the Earth to understand how our planet works. The "coolness" factor in talking about the volcanoes of Io might be something neat to discuss as well, or water volcanoes on Triton. And don't forget the "Death Star" moon: Mimas.

A similar argument could be made about at least some of the asteroids. This is a harder line to draw, but there is some significant information and photos of several asteroids that might be worth putting in as a seperate article. Certainly some distinctions between groups of asteriods, i.e. Trojans, Apollos, Main Belt, etc.

I don't want to overwhelm this wikibook, and I do understand its target audience, but this could be some additional material that would be of interest to younger kids. I'm throwing this subject up to get some more insight from the community before I rush out and add these articles.

Rob Horning 11:08, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Articles on some of the major moons could definitely be interesting. A couple of Neptune's moons are interesting, too.  The asteroids, not so much I think.  Isomorphic 04:45, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * With over 10K asteroids, most of them would be boring. There is some hard data about 5-10 asteroids, with pictures even taken by space probes, that would make some rather interesting pages at least as interesting as the larger moons.  Examples are Ceres, Ida, Gaspara, and Pallas.  Ceres and Pallas also have some interesting historic information, as they were used in part to establish the existance of the Asteroid Belt.Rob Horning 16:49, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've been giving this a little more thought, and I think the best way to add the "moons" would be to make them "optional" sections. We are trying to keep this wikibook to be about 45-55 pages (on A4 paper, larger font sizes) and adding all of the moons would make this too big. On the other hand, a more comprehensive books including all of the moons might be useful. Here is my general guideline/suggestion:

Write each of the sections on the planets themselves as though they can stand "alone" without any information from the separate modules on the moons. This includes a short 1 paragraph discription about significant moons of the planet. Hyperlinks can be put in that link to the moon articles (for navigation purposes in the Wiki).

The articles on the moons can still support one another, and will certainly be an area of supplimental details. Rob Horning 17:17, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Who discovered the planet (or moon)?
This is somewhat related to the above topic, but I'm proposing another question to be asked for each planet, and that is: Who discovered the planet?

For most of the planets, it will simply be a part of the mythology and discussions of what people thought about it in ancient times. The discovery of these bodies is in itself a very fascinating story and something that could be useful to explain to kids. It also gives credit to some very interesting people who have had a significant role in the development of modern astronomy.

Rob Horning 21:24, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I think this would be worth putting in. There's another option though, which was brought up earlier: we could have a separate article on "How we found out about the solar system".  That could cover the major discoverers as well as some basic info on how astronomy developed: things like who made the earliest telescopes, or what the major NASA probe missions have been. I was definitely interested in that kind of thing when I was a kid.  Isomorphic 04:45, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciations
I think it would be helpful to include pronunciations for the major objects in the solar system on the corresponding pages (Planets, moons). While most are fairly evident, Kuiper and Oort (among some of the moon names) are not.
 * While a good idea for Wikipedia, I am not totally sure how far to go on a kids' book. In addition, what sort of pronounciation guide/system should be used?  Embeding an .ogg file might have some value, but that is hard to display on a printed page (within the wiki would be just fine).  Using a standard "dictionary" pronounciation guide might look cool, but would kids be able to decypher it?  And what is the standard to go by?  Uranus, for example, has a couple of different pronounciations to use, mainly on emphasis (Your-anus...Ur-an-us...etc.) and this is also something that is strongly dependant on local dialect usage as well.  I am curious if the IAU has anything on this subject?  After some digging I havn't been able to find anything other than strictly the correct spelling of the moon or planet. Rob Horning 15:01, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * With the points you made, I think I'm starting to agree with you more. My major line of thinking was that it would be valuable for children to be able to discuss with adults without feeling as though they might mispronounce something - though I guess this is something kids rarely worry about.  If we did decide to go with a pronunciation key I think it's a given that it would not be a standard dictionary pronunciation key - it'd have to be something geared toward kids based on words they are already familiar with.  I didn't think about the localization issue - I thought that there were standards on the subject but hadn't checked.  I'll see if maybe I can find anything later.

Cool Facts
Could somebody help me writing here a list of cool facts about the Solar System? DrJones 10:32, 12 July 2005 (UTC)


 * If we could weight the Sun, it would be X times heavier than all the planets together.(*)
 * The light, the fastest thing in universe, takes 8 minutes to go from the Sun to Earth.
 * The names of the planets correspond to Roman Deities.
 * The Moon shows always the same face, as its period of rotation is the same as Earth.

(*) Being weight = mass * gravity, we only need to divide the mass of the Sun by the sum of the masses of all the planets to know how many times would the Sun be heavier than all the other planets on any gravity distinct of zero.

proof: sunmass*g / (m1*g)+(m2*g)+(m3*g) = sunmass*g / g*(m1+m2+m3) = sunmass / (m1+m2+m3) where m1, m2, m3 are planet masses, g is any gravity distinct of zero, and sunmass is the mass of the Sun. [unsigned comments by Carlos Hoyos]


 * That's nonsense. That isn't what anybody means when they talk about the "weight" of the Sun or one of the planets or any other heavenly body, even going back to when British scientist Henry Cavendish reported his experiments in his famous paper, titled "Weighing the Earth".


 * There is no reason for any discussion of gravity in connection with this. You can chose not to use the ambiguous term "weight" if you like; we have an alternative that is less ambiguous in this context (though it, too, has several different meanings in other contexts).  Metric1000 15:17, 12 July 2005 (UTC)


 * This is indeed where mass alone really has any context. The mass of the sun has a larger gravity well than the Earth or Jupiter by virtue of its substantially larger mass.  Weight in this context is meaningless and has no practical value.


 * On the other hand, the "Cool Facts" for the various planets is a neglicted area of the articles, and there does need to be some more things for just about every article that would be something unique or interesting to think about for each celestial body in the solar system. If there is a good artist, it would be nice for somebody to try and render a "astronomical symbol" for a Comet, and perhaps fix Uranus.  The symbol currently being used is more the traditional astrology symbol, for horoscopes and the like.  The astronomical symbol is more a dotted circle with an arrow pointing straight up.  --Rob Horning 07:11, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Cool Facts Template
I created a Cool Facts Template to be used in any section. You could use it like this:

Tables?
Should there be a page of multiple basic tables at the end of the book that shows data for the moons and planets? Names, symbols, diameters (both km and miles), masses (compared to Earth or Moon), densities (compared to ice), distances (from sun or planet), orbital periods, rotation periods, ... that sort of thing? That would allow a person reading the book to make comparisons between the different bodies. It's a pretty common feature of most books about the solar system. Thanks. &mdash; RJHall 21:46, 12 August 2005 (UTC)


 * It would be nice to adapt Planet (Table) to Wikijunior. If you are interested in taking on that task, Be Bold and add it to this Wikibook.  The table on Wikipedia is a bit too scientifically oriented for a typical Wikijunior reader, so it will take some work.  Don't do a direct fork of the Wikipedia article, but be creative and make it something kids would be interested in.  --Rob Horning 18:41, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Other Great Sources To Inspire Us
Obviously, we aren't the first to work on a fun guide to the solar system. I think we can gain inspiration from these other sites and refine our ideas about what makes *THIS* project unique and, therefore, worth doing --SV Resolution 13:29, 16 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Windows to the Universe: Our Solar System It seems to me this website is practically everything everyone here has said this WikiBook ought to be. It has great pictures, (mostly) age-appropriate text, cool facts, tables of planetary stats and orbits, etc. --SV Resolution 13:29, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

One thing to keep in mind that makes this site unique is that the content is available under the GFDL, so you can modify it to any form or format that you would like. Change it to a DVD presentation? You can even quote directly from the contents without having to get permission from the authors. The other sites you mention can only be used under fair-use provisions, and that is quite limited. I'm actually in the process of making a printed book version of this Wikibook, so it will be interesting to see what other applications of this data can occur. Books on tape? --Rob Horning 18:34, 16 August 2005 (UTC)


 * The big benefit of this wikibook, then, is the GFDL? Still, I think we can make it as good as the Windows to the Universe site.  Without plagiarizing.
 * --SV Resolution 21:15, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

TOC template
I propose (lame suggestion deleted by SV Resolution)

--SV Resolution 20:30, 18 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Before you delete this suggestion completely, I wanted to bring something up about an idea I had about the general organization of this Wikibook. The current template  is very unwieldy, and if considerably more content is added, it would be almost impossible to "find a home" for the template on most pages.  It tends to push the images around and sometimes it destroys what I find to be an asthetically pleasing introduction to the topic (like the beginning of the Earth article).  Because of that you have to move it further down the page.  Some articles I have had a very difficult time trying to add images that don't conflict with this navigation bar. One other thing to keep in mind that when this Wikibook was started, this was only "supposed" to be about the major planets themselves, with a few "extra" artcles about other objects in the solar system.  My contention was that knowledge of the solar system has advanced so much that to merely talk about just the planets is doing a poor introduction to planetary astronomy (what this Wikibook really is about...frankly better than some college textbooks about this subject even though this is oriented toward 8-12 year olds).  That is why I pushed for the creation of seperate sections for major moons, and I feel that eventually several asteroids and a few comets might be useful as well, not to mention some information about the Kuiper belt objects that seem to be making notice lately in the mainstream (read non-astronomy/science magazines or newspapers) press. I created a seperate template for navigation within the "Mars system", and it was my intention to do the same thing with all of the other major planets.  I think this would work with the asteroids and perhaps even the "extra questions at large" section.  Keep in mind that none of these templates will ever be used in the print versions of this Wikibook, so this is mainly an aid to those who are using it on the web side.  --Rob Horning 12:24, 19 August 2005 (UTC)


 * OK. Sounds like "chapter templates" and a "condensed template" would work. But please don't resurrect my lame suggestion to create a "master list" template to feed two different templates with entirely different purposes :-) Thanks --SV Resolution 20:46, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Satisfy Educational Content Standards?
Would it be worthwhile to aim at some kind of Educational Content Standards for the target age group? If so, which one(s).

Here's what I have learned recently about content standards:
 * In the US there is no national standard. The National Committee on Science Education Standards and Assessment, National Research Council, has proposed an outline for developing a set of|National Science Education Standards

--SV Resolution 17:00, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Also in the US, | Pennsylvania Educational Content Standards, including | Science and Technology (astronomy in section 3.4.D). I think we are missing a short discussion of how gravity each object whizzing around in its orbit.  I am ignoring equinoxes, calendars, seasons,  eclipses, constellations, and living in space, which are within the scope of "astronomy"(?living in space?) but outside the scope of this WikiBook on "our solar system". With the addition of gravity, I think this book hits the PA standards well.  The remaining information could go in a another book "Discovering Space".  The two would be essential companions.

wrt the space exploration section
"...space starts at about 100km (62m) above the earth." This 'boundary' is for legal reasons only, as far as I know. There is no sudden change in the constituents of the atmosphere, nor is there a sudden change in density or temperature, but simply a convenient figure to be defined as 'space' in treaties and, of course, in competitions such as the X Prize. Could this perhaps be expressed in the text? Or does anyone know a more scientifically reasoned border? Cheers, Mark Lewis 22:51, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I did a quick google on "where does space begin" and came up with http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/space/boundary.html

The United States awards astronaut status to anyone who flies above 50 miles in altitude. Many flight engineers, dealing with the effects of friction and heating of spacecraft due to atmospheric particles, define the boundary to be at 400,000 feet (75.76 miles). They call this the "entry interface," the point at which heating on reentry becomes observable. --SV Resolution 12:45, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Length of this book
I see from the early-August PDF version of this book that it was already over 100 pages. The Beck Foundation grant was for 48 page booklets, right? We've got WAY more content than that! Do we plow through until we are completely happy with the tome, then fork a Wikijunior Solar System booklet from it and slash and burn to get down to the "correct" number of pages? --SV Resolution 18:16, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree. The font of the books will be bigger, and each page will have pictures and/or toons. There's no way we can fit so much information in 48 pages (including the GFDL). Could you start suggesting how many sections should have the book, and how many pages should each one have? That way, we could have a reference to work from. I suggest starting now this process on another page, and keep the other as complete as it is. DrJones 11:39, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I completely disagree. There is some "paring down" that can be done as far as giving this to the Beck Foundation, particularly if all you want to do is just cover the basic 9 planets.  If that is going to take a "fork", then so be it.  You can take the raw content here and do it yourself, which is certainly allowed according to the GFDL, but I think there is merit in having the content as detailed as it currently is right now on the web side, and perhaps encouraging more development work as well.  It also goes to show you that filling up 48 pages of matieral is not particularly difficult for this particular subject and IMHO the effort to make the formal publication for the Beck Foundation should be happening right now.  As far as the "cartoon" illustrations, I don't see any real effort to get that accomplished.BTW, what is the status of the "print version" that the Beck Foundation wanted anyway?  Who is involved?  This seems like a dead proposal for now, and the PDF file was made in part to try and kick start the whole publication idea.  --Rob Horning 13:44, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
 * First cut of 'toon voting just completed at Wikijunior_project_Nikki_character_designs. Rob Horning says he disagrees with DrJones, but it sounds like you are both talking about starting work on a "booklet" version.  I agree that this is a good time for planning, but too soon for copying content. There is still a lot of work to be done on the "big" version.  Like writing to the grade level of the audience.  And fact-checking/adding citations (which demonstrate the facts have been checked as well as providing links to primary source material they can be retained in comments in the "booklet" version).  So I think it is too early to copy content to the "booklet" version. But we do have to think about it.  Do we reduce detail, or dump topics?  What's our total word-count budget? --SV Resolution 14:39, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I was talking about that. About the cartoons, I was merely stating that we should consider that they will also take up space on the booklet, not that they are more (less) important than the rest of the work. DrJones 15:27, 24 August 2005 (UTC)