You are on page 1of 4

By: 27905073

Mrs.Cain's class 6th hour


01-12-16

Moon Science ADI


Introduction: Have you ever wondered why the Moon looks different over time? If you
do, read all about this paper and find out! However, Before you start reading you should know
some facts and knowledge about the Moon. It was first landed on and explored in Apollo 11
which occurred in July 1969. The Moon is "the natural satellite of the earth," which means the
Moon is a space body that orbits a planet which in our case is Earth. The Moon takes
exactly 27.3 days to orbit the Earth but it also takes 29 days for the Moon to orbit it's
axis. An axis is the line about which an object rotates. Now that you know some basic
facts about the Moon, lets get started!
Guiding question: Why does the Moon look different over time?
Goal: The goal of this piece is to explain why the Moon looks different over time.

Method: What we did to answer the guiding question was that we used a
flashlight and two miniature sized ping pong and styrofoam balls on a stick to
model how the Moon orbits the Earth. Once we did this procedure, we found that
one of the reasons the Moon looks different over time is because of Moon
Phases. Moon Phases occur when "the shape of the illuminated (sunlit) portion of
the Moon as seen by an observer on Earth." This means that when the Sun's light
hits the Moon at certain angle, it looks like there is a portion of the moon out but
the part where the Sun is hitting the Moon is just more visible then the part that
isn't because it's more bright. We analyzed our data by taking videos and
pictures of us demonstrating the experiment. We also made a poster which talks
about how this works in space and how we modeled it to be similar to how it
actually occurs. Our group also interpreted that we could use ourselves to
observe the experiment, all we needed to do was walk around a chair without
spinning. We also had some colorful drawings too!
Claim: The moon looks different over time due to Moon Phases
Evidence: Moon phases cause the Moon to look different over time
because like I said before, when the Sun's light hits the Moon at certain
angle, it looks like there is a portion of the moon out but the part where the Sun is
hitting the Moon is just more visible then the part that isn't because it's more
bright. So from earth it seems like the moons is changing shape each day, but it's
just that one part of the Moon is brighter than the other due to the Sun. So in a
way, the sun is deceiving us with our own eyes!

Reasoning: This shows how the Moon looks different over time because
it describes and explains how the actual reason is because of Moon
Phases. It talks about how we see the Moon changing everyday and

why.
Websites used:
http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/space/moon.html

http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/M/Moon
https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.space.com/55-earthsmoon-formation-composition-andorbit.html&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwipi9vk0p_KAhWJMz4KHYF4BAcQFggFM
AA&client=internal-udscse&usg=AFQjCNHQjT3FzbvFQ5nCBW09KfvbeDIe-Q

You might also like