Teaching materials and fun facts about the moon
As an Educator, working in the field, or looking to fill conversation, I frequently turn to subjects that are close at hand. Often it's cumbersome to carry objects on a trail, you can't always find certain plants or animals when you need them (a general rule of thumb), and sometimes you just need to keep people's minds busy to avoid kids wandering off, people losing attention, or just "losing" your audience all together. One of the constants you can always talk about, especially at dawn, dusk, or for evening programs is the Moon. No matter where you are in the world, there it is. On top of this, the new Next Generation Science Standards have a strong component of space literacy too. Specifically they are targeting 1st and 5th grades, middle school, and high school. This program includes determining phases of the moon and determining distances in space. In this blog post we'll explore some quick moon facts, a fun exercise in proportion and size, and I'll provide you with some books and lesson plans that I like for teaching about the moon.
According to NASA, the moon is about 384,400 km (238,855 miles). Here are some other facts about the moon:
If you're like me, you like Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" album. But did you know that the song is actually misleading with its title? There really is no dark side of the moon. Because the moon orbits around the Earth in 27 days, and it spins at this same rate, it keeps the same side or face towards Earth while it orbits us. The speed of the Moon's rotation has led to the misconception that it does not rotate at all. But if the moon didn't spin on its axis at all then eventually we would see its far side, because the Moon is orbiting the Earth too.
Another misconception is the one side of the moon never receives sunlight, this is not correct. The moon is continually rotating on its axis, so there is never any time when it is in permanent darkness. The only time the far side of the moon does not receive sunlight is during a Full Moon, when the Earth is between the Sun and Moon, and only the sunlit portion of the Earth is facing us.
Have you ever looked at the moon on the horizon and noticed that it seems to be "huge" compared to when it is higher in the sky? You might think this is because of the refraction, or bending light, of our atmosphere and the sky. It's actually caused by an optical illusion. The moon is the same size the whole time, it's our eyes that are playing a trick! This is called the moon illusion or Ponzo illusion.
Mario Ponzo helped demonstrate this illusion in 1913, which shows that our minds often try to make sense of world by determining size based on the background behind an object.
Examine at the image below:
The background of the two yellow lines makes it appear as if one is far away and one is closer. However, if you were to print this image out and measure the width of yellow lines with a ruler, you would find that the two lines are exactly the same size. Your perception of the lines is based on how your brain "reads" the object's background.
This phenomenon is thought to be why the moon looks larger on the horizon, and smaller as it climbs into the sky. You can prove this by trying the following:
1. Take a picture of the moon from the same location, at different times of night, and then measure the diameter of the moon in the picture. Phones don't have the same "translation" issues our brains do.
2. Kids love this one: Observe the moon on the horizon from an upright or standing position. Then turn your back to the moon, bend over, and look at the moon through your open legs. By changing your position you "short-circuit" the brain's typical response to size and orientation to "reading" the size of objects. By doing this, the moon will appear its actual size.
3. Hold your thumb up to the moon, and measure the moon using your thumbnail, from the same location, at different times of the night.
What is the Moon Phase Today?
The best resources I've found for Moon Phases are from the Moon Connection and LunaF.com.
You can also find a nice full moon calendar, for this year and coming years, from the MoonPhases info website.
CLICK ON THE IMAGE OF THE SIMULATOR BELOW to view how the phases of the moon appear from the Earth, the Sun, and Space.
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