- Develop a concept map, which outlines the big ideas addressed in this webquest along with the fundamental concepts, which students should have as prior knowledge.
This was the first time that I made a concept map using an online tool and it actually worked pretty well. The big thing I notice is that most everything comes back to the Apollo missions which is where we acquired a great deal of information about the Moon. The rocks returned from the Moon to Earth provided direct evidence that the Moon was formed from Earth by a large impactor billions of years ago. Also, many of the misconceptions that people have about the Moon directly relate to the Apollo landings.
To understand the material presented in this webquest, students should have prior knowledge of concepts like gravity, light, and forces and motion. These can be easily re-taught if necessary but it would be helpful if the students came in with this knowledge.
- What SC standards (science, math, or otherwise) are related to the teachings/activities in the webquest?
I teach astronomy in high school and there are no state high school astronomy standards which gives me tons of leeway in what material I present in class. Of course we cover the Moon in good detail since it’s easily visible most days and is something that the students have been familiar with all their lives. We cover the formation of the Moon (both the accepted and no longer accepted theories and evidence thereof), properties, craters and maria, and effect on Earth.
Before the unit on the Moon, we spend time on basic calculations involving the force of gravity and a little bit on tidal forces. The students should have prior knowledge of force and acceleration which are physical science standards. We relate this to the Moon and how it stays in orbit which leads to a bigger discussion of how to put any object in orbit at any altitude – you just have to throw it hard enough that it falls at the same rate that the Earth curves away from it meaning that it will be falling around Earth which is orbit.
We also spend some time talking about what the vacuum on the Moon would do to unprotected humans which involves the chemistry standards relating pressure, volume, temperature, and the ideal gas law. My students always get a kick out of imagining the worst case scenarios in space exploration.
And although we don’t cover the Moon in chemistry, studying the Moon does relate to the broad chemistry standards (and general science standards) of scientific inquiry. Whereas the “laboratory apparatuses” in chemistry are beakers and scales, studying the Moon uses telescopes and binoculars along with awesome programs like Google Moon.
- Using your support documents for these standards, what is essential for students to understand?
Students must understand that anything with mass has gravity and the more mass an object has, the greater the force of gravity it exerts. The force of gravity also depends on distance which is why the Moon has a much greater effect on Earth’s tides than the Sun. Even though the Sun is many times more massive than the Moon, the Sun is much farther away so the effect of its gravity is minimal as compared to the Moon.
Earth’s gravity also holds on to very light stuff like nitrogen and oxygen which make up the vast majority of our atmosphere and which is one reason why the Moon has no atmosphere. It is important that the students understand that not only does gravity keep us from floating away, it also holds down other things that we often say float.
This can also go into the misconceptions about the Moon. Logical scientific inquiry should take care of misconceptions on its own although it may require a lot of work. Using Google Moon and models would help.
- How can the materials/information be used to help students develop their essential understandings? How can you modify the information or lesson to address the development of these understandings?
The best way to study the Moon is to go outside at night and look up. It’s even better with a pair of binoculars or a telescope. Learning from pictures in a book is one thing but actually seeing it in real life is entirely different. Most people don’t even realize that many craters on the Moon are visible to the naked eye but through binoculars they are crystal clear. The students can look through a telescope and see that the maria are smooth and highlands are mountainous so they can guess which were the targets of the Apollo missions. This will lead to the discussion of how each was formed, age of each, and type of rock in each.
Google Moon can be used to explore the far side of the Moon. One activity I did early in my astronomy class was I put a picture of the far side of the Moon on the board and asked my students to identify the object. Well over half said that it was Mercury since they had never seen a picture of the far side of the Moon even though they are very familiar with what the Moon looks like. It is taken for granted that people know that the Moon is a sphere but it’s worth taking the time to confirm that.
Using Google Moon to look at the far side of the Moon will lead to discussions of why we only see one side of the Moon from Earth, how we got pictures of the far side, and why the two sides appear radically different. This could jump into the Space Race and why craters on the far side of the Moon are named predominantly with Russian names. All of this can stem from one simple picture.
- What key misconceptions commonly inhibit a clear and accurate understanding of this content? How should you modify your instruction to address these misconceptions?
The Moon is a 2-dimensional circle in the sky.
We don’t know what the dark side of the Moon looks like.
The Moon goes through phases because Earth’s shadow blocks parts of it.
The United States
I could go on and on…
I would love to have a Moon globe like the one we used at the workshop at Roper Mountain
Refuting the misconceptions with the phases is a little tougher I think. Everybody knows that a shadow cast on half of an object makes that half darker so why doesn’t this apply to the Moon? The Moon is brightest at night which means that the Earth is between the Sun and the Moon so we must be casting a shadow on the Moon. It is very difficult for students to visualize why a full Moon is full when it is usually shown in a 2-dimensional diagram in a textbook.
Above is one of the worst diagrams of the phases of the Moon that I have ever seen. While it is technically correct, it is extremely misleading. It looks like the new moon should be on the other side of the Earth because the new moon is dark so Earth should be blocking the sunlight from hitting it. The full moon should be when the Moon is between Earth and the Sun and the last quarter is somehow lit up on the left side even though the Sun’s rays are coming from the other direction. Students have been seeing diagrams like this forever so no wonder they have misconceptions.
The diagram below is better. It is a little more cluttered but it distinguishes between what the Earth-Moon-Sun system looks like from a 3rd person point-of-view and what it looks like to us standing on Earth.
Models are the best to use for this topic though and have the students up and involved like we did at the workshop.
- What new scientific information did you learn in this lesson?
I never put it together that the Moon and Earth are made from pretty much the same material (although the Moon lacks large quantities of heavy metals) so studying the Moon can teach us a lot about Earth’s history since Earth’s rocks are significantly different now due to erosion than they used to be. The Moon has been eroded by solar particles and radiation but not nearly to the extent that weather on Earth has eroded our rocks. In effect, the Moon is a time capsule of Earth. Sampling the anorthrosite and bringing it back to Earth for study is very helpful. Also, if we can get samples from crater ejecta or from the bottom of craters we may be able to see the interior composition of the Moon.
I knew about the effect of the Moon on Earth’s tides but I did not know that the Moon stabilized Earth’s rotation. This leads to…
- What questions do you still have? (Write at least two and answer them with the resources and links provided.)
How does the Moon stabilize Earth’s axis of rotation? I don’t know the physics behind it but I would like to. The Moon is gradually getting farther away from Earth while the Earth is slowing down due to tidal forces and the conservation of angular momentum but how does gravity of the Moon allow Earth’s axis to be consistent? I wonder if in the distant future when the Moon gets far enough away if the geographic north pole will shift to Canada or Russia instead of the Arctic Ocean .
I found some answers but it was on a forum but it does make sense. It is based on the same angular momentum I mentioned above which is based on mass among other things. By itself, Earth has angular momentum but the Earth-Moon system has a larger angular momentum due to the larger total mass. Just as it is difficult to slow, stop, or otherwise change the direction of an object with large momentum, it is difficult to change the direction of Earth as it rotates. Thus, Earth’s rotational axis is stabilized by our relatively large Moon. Mars, on the other hand, has no large Moon so its rotational axis could have changed a great deal over millions or billions of years which may have affected the development of life.
What countries have not signed the Outer Space Treaty? As technology develops, will a non-signing country attempt to claim the Moon or more importantly put weapons up there? Or will they not be as careful as us in not contaminating the Moon?
According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative (http://www.nti.org/db/nisprofs/fulltext/treaties/space/space3.htm), a ton of countries have signed the treaty including China and Russia (under the Soviet Union) which are the two countries I would have worried about most because they sometimes don’t act as friends to the United States and they both have advanced technology to get stuff to the Moon. A notable absentee from the treaty is North Korea North Korea
- What new instructional practice did you learn? Describe how you can use this in the classroom.
Google Moon!
This picture is not to scale and the lighting is wrong but I still like it.
I knew about Google Earth but I had no idea that there was a similar program for the Moon (and Mars too for that matter). I will definitely be using it a lot in my astronomy class next year. We can focus on specific craters and other surface features, note the locations of the Apollo landings, and see the far side of the Moon. We have a laptop cart that we can use so I might see if I can get Google Moon on each one of those then have my students do a mini-webquest. After the first 20 minutes of them playing around with it on their own, we might actually get some good useful work done!
