Photo: pupils from Lancaster Girls’ Grammar School with a reporter from BBC Radio Stoke at the project launch at Jodrell Bank.

A project to build the world’s largest scale-model of the Solar System is to be created in the UK by 18 schools after an award of £28,000 from NESTA (the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts).

The Spaced Out project will bring together schools, visitor attractions, scientists, artists and designers. They will work together to build a series of scale models and sculptures that will be dotted in strategic locations throughout the UK – from Cornwall to the Shetland Islands.

The project is the idea of science teacher Dr Nigel Marshall who took inspiration from a similar project in Illinois, USA.

“Spaced Out will become a national teaching resource accessible to all students in all schools,” he explained. “Even if the models only stay in place for three years and are seen only by pupils in the first three years of senior school, they will have cost just three pence per pupil.”

Photo: Jodrell Bank’s Ian Morison with Spaced Out team members Nigel Marshall, Andrew Greenwood and Ann Picot.

The series of sculptures will be constructed on a scale of 1 to 15 million – thereby reducing the distance between Earth and the Sun to about 10km (6 miles).

The Sun will be reconstructed and displayed at Jodrell Bank observatory in Cheshire whilst planet Earth will reside in Macclesfield. Uranus will be in Bath, the city where William Herschel lived when he discovered the planet in 1871, whilst Halley’s Comet is due to be housed at Forest Gate Community School in London’s East End. Pluto will in Aberdeen.

"We are committed to supporting experimental approaches to engaging the public in science, technology and the arts and we are delighted to be supporting this project," said Sarah Macnee, Acting Learning Director of Nesta. "It merges so many disciplines to deliver an intriguing and unusual visitor experience.”

As well as facilitating partnerships between schools, visitor attractions and artists and designers the funding provided by NESTA will be used to publicise the project up to the proposed launch date of March 2005.