My Very Educated Mother Just Served What

My Very Educated Mother Just Served What?

A Solar System Internet and Excel Activity

Introduction

Listing the planets in order from the sun is easy if: (1) you know the names of the planets and (2) you know the mnemonic My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas.
A mnemonic is a trick to help you memorize information. The first letter of each word in this mnemonic is the same as the first letter of each of the planets in order.

Task:

In this activity, you will be researching the Solar System using various internet sites, gathering Planet data and then creating Solar System spreadsheet using Excel. This spreadsheet will provide physical characteristics as well as calculate your weight on other planets.

Background Information:

You will need to find the following information about the planets.
1. Order from the sun
Find background information and other information here:
The Nine Planets Multimedia Tour

To find the following physical data about each planet visit this site:
Solar System Exploration
2. Radius of each planet in km.
3. Density of each planet
4. Rotation in days
5. Gravity factor in g.
6. Number of moons
7. Number of rings

Create the Spreadsheet

1. Open a New Workbook in Microsoft Excel.
2. On the menu bar, format your font, size, style and alignment to your preferences.

3. In cell A1 type the title of your chart.
4. Type the following titles in the following cells:
A3 Planet Name; B3 Radius (km); C3 Density; D3 Rotation (days); E3 Gravity; F3 My Weight;
G3 Weight on Planet; H3 Moons; I3 Rings
5. Leave A4 blank. Beginning in A5 enter all of the text data and numerical data under the appropriate headings. Remember to enter only one piece of data per cell. Leave columns F and G blank for now. That data will depend on your personal data that you will enter.
6. Go in and adjust any column widths that need to be adjusted at this time.
7. If you do not know your weight in pounds, guess at it and enter it into column F (all the way down to the end of the list.).
8. We are now going to enter a formula into column G. Click on cell G5 and then click on the = sign in the formula bar at top see graphic below.

9. Click on the down arrow to the left of the red X. From the menu that drops down, choose "PRODUCT" In the formula bar to the right of the = sign make sure that this is in the white field =PRODUCT(E5:F5)
It will need to be typed in exactly as it is here. This formula is telling the computer spreadsheet to multiply cell E5 by F5.
What Just Happened? To find your weight on each planet the gravity factor in Column E is multiplied by your weight in Column F. The answer will appear in Column G.
Click OK.

10. By placing your cursor at the bottom right hand corner of Cell G5 the fat white plus sign will turn to a slim black plus sign. This lets you know that you can now apply the same formula to rest of the cells in that column. As soon as the cross changes to black, holding your mouse button down, drag it straight down to the end of the list. Boom! Your products should automatically appear in every column.

11. Now to hide the column with your weight (Column F). Click on the cell with the letter F in it. When you do this, the entire column should highlight. Next, in the Menu bar at the top, click on "Format", then "Columns", then choose "hide". Column F should disappear. It is still there, but you just can't see it. (To unhide it, click on the two columns on each side of the hidden column, click on "Format", "Columns", and "Unhide".)

12. Click on the icon in your tool bar at the top that represents "Borders and Shading". If you don't know, hover over the icons with your cursor and the name of each icon will appear. Click on the Borders and Shading icon and set your borders and any shading that you may want.

13. To create a graph, use the Chart Wizard. That icon can also be found in your tool bar. It has a picture of a graph on it. Highlight cells A5 through I13. Then click on the Chart Wizard icon. Follow the on screen directions to create your graph. At the end of this process, choose to insert as an object in the spreadsheet and both the data chart and the graph will appear on the same page.

Final Product

Your finished product should look something like this: (The blue area is just where these were hightlighted. Yours doesn't have to be blue.) When this is printed the column letters and row numbers will not appear. The gray cell outline of the unused cells will not appear in your printed copy. This is just a screen shot from the computer screen. Don't forget to save where your teacher instructs you to save.