Diagram of the Solar System

 Assessment Plan

The task

• Students are to draw a labelled diagram of the solar system. Encourage them to include as many of the bodies and regions as they can recall but instruct them not to draw the moons. The diagram can be drawn on a sheet of paper or constructed digitally.
• When assessing student understanding, look for the following indicators: the sun is centrally or prominently located (depending on the format of the diagram), all planets are depicted in the correct order, there is some indication of the sun’s and the planets’ relative sizes (diagram is not required to be to scale), colours (if used) of the planets are reasonable, planet and object orbits are depicted and, additional celestial bodies (e.g. asteroid belt, Ceres, Kuiper belt, Pluto, comets) are apparent.

Suggested Assessment Guidelines

• Remove or cover any displays related to the topic.
• Students to remove all materials from their desks, except for those required for the assessment.
• Students to be seated in such a way that they cannot copy the work of other students.
• Students should not be allowed to speak once the assessment papers have been distributed.
• Students may ask questions but should not be given any assistance to complete tasks.
• Students must complete the assessment in the allocated time, as decided by the teacher.
• Teachers should frequently monitor students as they complete the assessment.

 Assessment Strategies

Suggested Assessment Strategies

• used strategic whole class or individual questioning
• observed student participation during learning activities
• recorded student progress on a checklist
• annotated student work samples
• collected and reviewed student work samples
• facilitated whole class or peer feedback sessions
• encouraged student self-reflection
• administered formal assessment tasks.

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