When I was young, one of the fixtures of elementary school science was building a model of the solar system. I built one, my younger sister built one, and by the time my younger brothers went through school, I was a solar system model building expert.
Today, I found on the excellent Chalk Dust blog a link to a visualization of the planets in orbit. The visualization was created by Gunn Interactive. Using this interactive visualization tool students can see the different rates of orbit for all of the planets. Students can zoom in and zoom out to see more or less of the planets. Students can also adjust the speed of the orbits.
Applications for Education
This interactive visualization of the solar system is a great resource for elementary and middle school science classes. Students can see the differences in rate of orbit from planet to planet.
Here are some related resources that may be of interest to you:
A Tour of the Solar System
Star Child – Space Lessons for Young Astronomers
Amazing Space
