Over the last 500 years humans have gone from seeing a man in the moon to seeing a man on the moon. This phenomenal advance in collective learning has taken place thanks in large part to a group of strategies which have come to be referred to as The Scientific Method. If humankind has made so much progress by using the Scientific Method, then why not teach all our children to use it at an early age rather than waiting until high school or college to teach a few who are fast-tracked into science and technology careers. If we have made this much progress with a few humans using these strategies, then what will our collective learning curve look like if we are all trained to make science discoveries and/or to appreciate the discoveries of others?

Monday, October 15, 2007

OCTOBER MOONWATCH GRAPH

OBJECTIVE: FIND PATTERNS IN THE TIMES OF MOONRISE/MOONSET FOR
THE MONTH OF OCTOBER

TIME NEEDED : Two or three periods

MATERIALS:
Calendar of moonrise/moonset times
Pencil
Graph paper

PROCEDURE:

1. Hand out the calendar of monthly sunrise/sunset, moonrise/moonset times from www.sunrisesunset.com
2. Have students make a table with the following headings.
MOONRISE MOONSET

DATE 12 HR CLOCK 24HR CLOCK 12 HR CLOCK 24 HR CLOCK

3. The times given in the calendar are in daylight savings time. Have students convert these times to Standard Time.
4. The times given in the calendar are according to a 12 hr. clock. Have students convert the times to a 24 hr. clock.
5. Have students join two pieces of graph paper together.
6. Label the y axis from 0 to 23 : HOURS OF THE DAY
7. Label the x axis from 1 to 31: DAYS OF THE MONTH
8. Make a bar graph for each day.
9. Make a horizontal line at the time of moonrise for each day. Label the line “R: and write the time.
10. Make a horizontal line at the time of moonset for each day. Label the line “S” and write the time.
11. Darken the bar between the times of moonset and moonrise.
12. On a separate piece of paper, write about the patterns you see in this graph.
13. Draw the new moon, first quarter moon, full moon, and thirdquarter moon at the time they are directly overhead
(at zenith).
14. Draw a waxing crescent and waxing gibbous moon at the time it is overhead.
15. Draw a waning crescent and waning gibbous moon at the time it is overhead.
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