The Magic School Bus

Students in Astronomy I: Earth to the Milky Way’s Edge blasted off in a Pomfret bus down Route 44/169. They were on a mission to understand the size of objects in our solar system and their distance from the Sun on a more familiar scale.

With their pilot, Science Department Head and Director of the Olmsted Observatory Josh Lake, behind the wheel, they launched their mission from the Sun — the traffic light at the four-way intersection of Route 44/169 and Route 97, outside of the Vanilla Bean.

At each stop, students held up a circular or spherical object that represented a celestial body in our solar system. The size of each object was scaled in relation to the Sun, a large yoga ball. They shared three interesting facts and the distance between their object and the Sun in astronomical units (AU) and on the Pomfret scale.

After traveling down Route 44/169 and making numerous stops, the bus turned around, but not before the students learned about two transNeptunian objects. They were shocked to hear how far Pluto was from the Sun but were stunned when Lake shared how close the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, was to the Sun on the Pomfret model — all the way around the Earth plus the distance from Pomfret to Detroit, Michigan.

“The field trip really helped me understand just how much empty space there is in the solar system,” explained Dolan Pols ’23.

The class learned about other examples of the size of the solar system, including permanent displays in Maine and Sweden and temporary ones set up in the desert and on a football field. While the bus ride and their demonstration was not the first scale model of the solar system, it was certainly the most magical.