Monday, February 27, 2012

Moon Phases Lab


Guiding Question: What causes the phases of the moon?
Hypothesis: The rotation of the moon causes different sides to be lit up and when you look at it from Earth the lighting changes.

         From Space                                                                              From Earth



Questions:


  1. The Moon is represented by the smaller ball on the toothpick. The Earth is the larger styrofoam ball. The sun is represented by our mini black-light.
  2. You can't see any of it, a new moon.
  3. See on paper to the right
  4. After a full circle the moon is a new moon and can't be seen.
  5. Half of the moon is always lit by the moon. It was not an eclipse because half of the moon is still lit up.
  6. I think the only disadvantage of this model is that it is very tempting to throw the balls around and shine the black light into peoples eyes. Another to do this lab would be doing it on a larger scale with a globe as the Earth (obviously) a tennis ball held by the partner as the moon and a larger torch as the sun.

1 comment:

  1. Please make sure that you have included the question in your answer so your readers can understand what you are referring to in each question.

    Overall, you have a good idea of what causes the phases of the moon. However, many details were missing in each answer, and so the clarification of your thinking was as well.

    I like that you included the images from your notebook.

    ReplyDelete