The Voyage development team put a significant effort into framing pedagogical approaches that maximize the experience for: visitors to the exhibition; users of the educational materials; and the students, families, and educators participating in community-wide programming. Fundamental to Voyage’s success is the effective use of models across all aspects of the initiative.

Models are powerful tools of exploration that allow some reality of the greater world to be placed in a context that promotes conceptual understanding. A model’s success often depends critically on how well it provides a bridge to the familiar. Good science and good science education critically rely on the power of models.

There are many types of model, including a physical model, a conceptual model, and a numerical model . The Voyage experience relies on all three.

The Voyage scale model Solar System is a physical model whose one to 10-billion scale was the means to address fundamental learning objectives for the visitor. The model’s accuracy goes far beyond what is apparent to the visitor, and provides an exceptional breadth and depth of content to be incorporated into exhibition tours and tour brochures, and into the Voyage lessons, particularly at the high school and undergraduate level.