The Planets Online - Educator's Guide

This site can help students of all ages learn about a variety of subjects and includes features specifically for educators. For example, you can send students special links that draw their attention to particular comments, images, and music selections. The following link shows web pages from NASA, so would be of interest to an astronomy class: theplanetsonline.com/?commentary=science-sources. And this next link would be suitable for a music class: theplanetsonline.com/?commentary=music.

Notice these special links include keywords at the end of the address, such as '/?commentary=music'. It’s also possible to specify more than one commentary by using a + sign between keywords at the end of the web address. So if you wish students to see basic music comments and those on composition, the link would be: theplanetsonline.com/?commentary=music+musiccomp. For a full list of commentary keywords see the table at the end of this page.

Additionally, you can draw attention to particular sections by specifying a start time. The following link starts playing ten minutes in: theplanetsonline.com/?start=00:10:00. Or you can just add the name of a planet to end of the address, for example: theplanetsonline.com/jupiter.

And if you'd like to hide the orchestra leaving just the visuals, you can do that too. The following enables the ‘Images only’ video: theplanetsonline.com/?video=1. To enable the orchestra view use ‘video=0’.

These various options can be combined if you separate them with an ‘&’ sign. Here’s an example: https://theplanetsonline.com/?commentary=science+tech+science-sources+info&video=1&start=00:02:20

Would you like to write a commentary customized for your class? That’s easy. Just contact us for more details: info@adrianwyard.com

Commentary Keywords