The size of our solar system made minuscule the miles separating the students of Kristen Kneer's third-grade class from a NASA education specialist visiting by video.

Students from Moravia Central School met in the Distance Learning Room last week to satisfy their curiosity about the sun and nearby planets in an event titled “Our Solar Neighborhood.”

The idea for the video session came to Kneer during a NYSCATE (New York State Association for Computers and Technologies in Education) conference where a speaker discussed its educational value.

“We haven't been able to do a lot with technology in the district, so it was nice to be able to pull it off, even with the glitches,” she said.

Chris Stein, an education specialist with NASA, could only hear the class due to technical difficulties with the video conference equipment, but he was not deterred from sharing facts about the solar system that were met with “Ooohs!” and “Wows!” from the 22 students.

“I liked when we were talking about the sun because I didn't know it lets out gas like a nuclear bomb,” said student Riley Martin.

Martin was referring to solar flares - blasts of energy from the surface of the sun that can equal the raw power of a million nuclear bombs.

“When you hear that static on the radio, that's what usually causes it,” Stein said.

Stein also showed the students a scale model of the sun's size. Holding a large yellow beach ball, he asked them to guess what type of sports balls represent the relative sizes of Jupiter and the Earth. After a few guesses, the class could envision the meager size of the Earth when Stein held up a marble next to the sun's beach ball.

The students were amused by another method of demonstrating the vast distance between the planets when Stein played a video of three people on a softball field. One man, representing Earth by holding a basketball-sized sphere, remained at home plate. He then instructed a woman to walk to the end of the infield with a golf ball-sized globe to represent the moon.

Next, the man at home plate directed another man to run to the appropriate distance representing that between Earth and Mars. As the man neared the warning track, he was told to continue past the fence and run for another six miles. The video of his journey was sped up to the amusement of the audience.

Even when they weren't laughing, the students were still loud. The NASA representative asked them to fill in the blanks at several points in the presentation and the feed required them to boldly project their answers. Whether he was asking why Venus is blue in one picture but orange in another or how many Earths could be squeezed inside Jupiter's Great Red Spot, Stein would have seen a sea of outstretched hands.

“They were quite thrilled that they knew a lot of the answers to the questions,” Kneer said. “They were proud of the knowledge they had gained.”

Each planet had its place in the presentation, and Stein took some time to describe their distinguishing characteristics. He explained to the students that Venus is the hottest planet, despite being farther from the sun than Mercury.

“Venus has a very large blanket made out of clouds,” he said.

When the educational tour stopped at Mars, Stein discussed the planet's 2,000-mile-long canyon and towering volcanoes. Student Bryanna Frank's favorite portion of the presentation was “getting to see Mars and talk about how many volcanoes there are.”

Yet for all the facts Stein fed the students, there were few they had not heard before.

“I enjoyed learning about Jupiter and the moons and how big they are, but there was really nothing we hadn't already learned,” said student Cassandra Miller.

Stein finally stumped his student audience by asking why scientists are so fascinated by Titan, a moon of Saturn. His excitement was visible as he could finally educate them by explaining that the moon's composition of land masses and oceans makes it the most similar heavenly body to Earth.

The presentation also included three-dimensional models of a comet probe and a Mars rover. The former model elicited audible awe from the class as Stein explained that it shoots a piece of the probe into a comet that leaves a football field-sized crater in its surface. The remaining portion of the probe then collects and analyzes the resulting debris.

The rover was another popular topic. Several homemade models, in addition to tinfoil space robots and shoebox dioramas with Styrofoam planets, lined two tables behind the rows of seated students.

They clutched lists of questions prepared for the video conference, such as “How do scientists know there is life on Mars?” and “How many planets can be found outside our solar system?” Almost every query was answered by Stein, but when one student asked whether any moons reside within Saturn's rings, even the NASA representative couldn't answer her.

Stein's confusion added even more credence to his declaration that one of America's next astronauts could be sitting inside that classroom in Moravia.

Staff writer David Wilcox can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 245 or david.wilcox@lee.net