Week 6 - Earth, Moon, Sun

Week 6 - Earth, Moon, Sun

Introduction

For this week in Science Methods, we explored misconceptions about the orbits of the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun. To start, we took a pre-test to think about what we learned about these orbits. What "shape" does the Earth travel about the sun? What are some of the phases of the moon?
We started off by thinking about some key questions:
  1. How do the phases of the moon occur?
  2. What causes the seasons?
  3. What causes a lunar eclipse?
As we asked these questions we also

New Discoveries

Using a globe, a light source (our "sun"), and a Styrofoam ball, we took a look at a previously asked questions and thought about how Earth and the moon rotate about the Sun. 


From this experiment by playing around with the objects, we were able to answer our questions.

  • How do the phases of the moon occur?
    • The phases of the moon occur when the earth rotates. we can only see the part of the moon that the is reflecting off the sun. 
  • What causes the seasons?
    • The seasons occur because the earth is tilted on its axis. The side that tilts farther away from the sun is colder, and the side that is tilted towards the sun is warmer. 
  • What causes a lunar eclipse?
    • A lunar eclipse occurs when the sun covers the moon(?). This causes the light reflecting off the moon to be temporarily blocked.

Connections

A HISTORY OF EARTH'S ROTATION

We learned that in the 1500, a man known as Copernicus pushed the idea that geocentrism was the main belief behind the orbits of the planets, the moon, and the sun.  What this means is that we used to believe that the Earth was the center of the universe (unlike what we know now). In fact, scientists ignored the idea of heliocentrism (the Sun as the center of the universe) However, another scientist Galileo invented the telescope in 1609, and in fact, was jailed by the Catholic Church for his beliefs.

DIVING DEEP: WHAT CAUSES THE SEASONS


The Earth undergoes for major seasons, each marked with its own solstice or equinox (summer/winter solstice, and autumn/spring equinox) An equinox occurs when both day and night receive an equal amount of sunlight (12 hours). Additionally, we need to understand our rotation around the sun lies on an important plane, the Plane of the Ecliptic. The Earth stays on this plane, but is tilted on an axis. As a result, some areas will receive less sunlight than other areas on the Earth. The seasons don't change based on how far or close we are to the sun (as we previously thought), our seasons change because of the tilting of the Earth. When a hemisphere tilts toward the sun, it will get hotter (summer). Conversely, when the same hemisphere is tiled away from the sun, it gets cooler (winter). Special lines that scientists made up (Tropic of Cancer/Capricorn, and the Equator) help us determine these areas of direct sunlight with respect to Earth and its revolution around the sun.

MOON PHASES/ECLIPSES



We also learned about the phases of the moon and how eclipses form. From our prior lab experiences , we know that there are two types of eclipses: solar and lunar. To start, we determined from lab that we see the phase of the moon that we see because the earth's rotation. The illuminated part of the moon comes from the reflection off of the sun. So every 28 days (a full moon cycle), we see the full moon, we see the illuminated side of the moon. However, what we also learned is that the moon is not on the same orbit as us, which is one of the factors that causes an eclipse. Solar eclipses occur when the moon crosses between the Earth and the Sun. These always occur during new moons depending on where you are in the world.


Conversely, the lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth gets in between the sun and the moon. Lunar eclipses always occur during full moons.

STRANDMAPS AND THE PRIVATE UNIVERSE

We looked at a new tool called a strandmap, which expands upon what we know about the concept map. This strandmap is divided into grade levels and important overarching concepts. One such concept we explored is phases of the moon. From this, we learned about the phases of the moon and why they occur, and what happens when an eclipse occurs  And based on our lab experiment and reading from the textbook, we also debunked our old meaning of the season changes. We also looked at a mini-documentary called Private Universe that also helped debunk our understanding as teachers. We can observe our students to find out what they know, and what we can teach them. This video along with our lab discussion helped us understand that there are glaring misconceptions about what we were taught about Earth's orbit and how our preconceived notions can be challenged to inquire about natural phenomena.

The Future

As we continue to think about our solar system and orbits, we will look at the moon and its phases. 

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