Calculating Your Weight on Other Planets

Students get interested in things that have an emphasis on anything “I” oriented. Calculating their own weight on other planets is one thing they can calculate either with a calculator, in an Excel(TM) spreadsheet, or through the internet. They get the opportunity then to say: “I would weigh ____ pounds on the planet Jupiter.” etc. Students can also be encouraged to think about how high they might be able to jump on another planet, how much they could lift, how far could they hit a golf ball, etc.

If you have a regular bathroom scale (measures in pounds) in the classroom, the students could be encouraged to check their weight in pounds and then record this into a spreadsheet or a data sheet. You need to have a list of the conversion factors for each planet. The only one you have to have to know is the value on the Earth.

If we list the planets in order with their conversion factor: Mercury .38, Venus .91, Earth1, Mars.38, Jupiter 2.54, Saturn 1.08, Uranus .91, Neptune 1.19, Pluto .06. You could of course also add the Moon .17. You might list this in Excel(TM) something like this:

A…………B………………C
1___Mercury_____ .38
2___Venus______ .91
3___Earth______1,00
4___Mars_______.38
5___Jupiter_____ 2.54
6___Saturn_____ 1.08
7___Uranus_____ .91
8___Neptune___ 1.19
9___Pluto_______ .06
10__Moon_______.17

You may not want to list Pluto as a planet any longer, but a lot of the textbooks probably still will list it as a planet. The planets would be listed in the B column of cells and the C column would have a formula. The formula would be C3 * .38 in the case of Mercury. The multiplication factor must be changed in the formula relative to the planet being calculated. The value placed in C3 is the actual weight on the Earth. You would only put the weight in the cell, but not the word “pounds” or the abbreviation for pounds.

This lesson can provide a great “homework” assignment in which the student would go home and calculate their parents, brothers, sisters, other relatives weight on other planets. If you want to develop a written lesson for this you might do something like this:

Your weight on the Earth==> _________
For Mercury X the above by:_______.38__
…………………………………………============
………………….Final Answer_____________ Weight On Mercury

You would only have to change the format for the above for each planet. This lesson can lead to other lessons about the difference between weight and mass, a lesson about density, volume, space, gravity and much more. This lesson directly relates to Florida Sunshine State Standards concerning the nature of matter. Students are more likely to do this as homework if they get the chance to calculate the weight of their mother and father and this brings the family into the process. The time that a parent has to put into this is minimal but important. Short homework assignments like this, that require input from home are excellent ways to start getting parents involved and interested. You might even see more parents at the next conference night.