Content Understanding

1.What I learned from this project:

Tracking the moons phases is a lot easier to understand when you know what you're looking for. When you're looking at the moon with an unaided eye, its hard to see the moon's slight phases changes from day to day, but when you know what phase the moon is in, or have been predicting what it might look like, its a lot easier to spot certain things about the moon. The moon's size appears smaller and smaller as the night goes on. By getting students to observe the moon over a long period of time, it is a good way to get them to notice  other observations of the night sky.

2. What creates our moon phases:

The moon's passes are created by the way the Earth, moon and sun are positioned. The sun's light reflects on the moon. Whichever angle the sun is shining on the moon is what we see. The angles change when the moon orbits the Earth.

3.Why the moon can rise and set at any point in the day:

Depending on what angle the Earth AND the moon are at, the moon can be seen at different times every day. The moon has an increasing lag behind the sun each day (until cycle is complete.)

4. A method to teaching children about predicting the moon phases:

Using the inside of Oreo's with frosting to manipulate the moon's phases (along with videos images of the moon's phases.)