First you have to choose what facts you want to gather (remember you are trying to decided whether or not life could survive on the planet or not).
Here are five facts that everyone should look for.
1. How long does it take for the planet to complete one rotation? (Remember this is 1 day for earth)
2. How long does it take for the planet to orbit the sun once? (Remember this is 1 year for earth)
3. What is the atmosphere made up of?
4. What is the distance from the planet to the sun?
5. Does the planet have a water source?
Along with these five facts, you and you should choose five more facts that you think are important and/or interesting. I recommend facts that go along with the ones that have provided, for instance the size of the planet would help you figure out if it has room to build on. However, you do not have to use that, for you are being asked to choose five facts that you find important. Ones that would allow you to consider aspects of human life. If this part seems confusing feel free to discuss with your classmates what they believe would be important facts to know before beginning life on a new planet. But in the end its up to you to decide what you need to know. The only rule is that you collect the same 10 facts about every planet. This will make comparing them a lot easier. I also recommend organizing the facts into a chart format. Some ideas to organize your information are: a grid format (where you list the names of the planets across the top and the questions your researched down the side and fill the information in), or a concept map that starts with the questions and has the different plants branching off, or even just list format where each question is looked at separately. Whatever way makes sense to you and it doesn't have to be one of the suggested ones, however you choose to record your information is up to you.
*One way to compare the different planets to decide if they are capable of life is to compare them to Earth. It is recommended that you gather data for Earth as well as the other plants for this purpose. However, it is ultimately up to you.
