Moon Inquiry Essay Questions

Moon Inquiry Reflection
I have a fairly clear understanding of the lunar phases and orbit. I know that, as the moon travels around the Earth, it is illuminated by the sun at different angles. The different angles of illumination are what cause the eight phases that we observe from Earth. I also know that the moon takes about thirty days to rotate the Earth and the rising and falling of the moon on the horizon follows a pattern.
The moon activities impacted my learning in that I was more motivated to learn. I was also more motivated to explore with my learning. For example, when using balls of foam and a lamp to observe the moon phases, I was spinning around and holding the ball at different heights to see how it was illuminated in different areas. Additionally, when my group was doing the crater activity with flour and rocks, we were the last group to finish because we wanted to experiment. We had observed that, towards the end of the experiment, the flour had …show more content…
Therefore, I would be sure to set those expectations before starting each activity. For the second activity, I would probably use a large container or a kiddy pool, rather than giving students their own containers. Further, I would tape a yardstick to the container/pool, and mark it off where students should drop their rocks, so there is less room for error. Finally, I would distribute rocks, rather than have students pick up their own, so results would be more standardized. For the third and final activity, I would simply provide students with a table that lists the rising and setting of the moon, rather than have them interpret the webpage our class was given. Further, I would have my groups each take part of the month, rather than having everyone do their own