What else could we ask students:
Instead of using a tape measure, have the students decide what their measurement tool would be. For example, the could measure the length of someone's shoe and measure the distance in relative shoe lengths. This would get kids to appreciate that measurement units are based on a standard.
Ask some questions about time. Now that they know the distance, how long would it take to drive to the moon for example.
Students who finish early:
Ask them to provide some technical help to other groups as needed.
Ask them to determine how many earths could fit into some of the larger planets.
Left out:
Perhaps students could be given a challenge to go with the video aspect. For example, tell them they have a 30 second time limit for the video they submit and their job is to determine the essential parts of the set up, execution and analysis of the lab and capture those moments within the time limit. This would prevent the teacher from having to wade through lots of useless footage and make somewhat simple labs and procedures a bit more challenging.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Our Lab
Title: Visualizing the distance to the moon
Goal: Using cutouts of the earth and moon, along with a tape measure, we created a scaled representation of the distance from the center of the earth to the moon.
Procedure:
We looked up the distance from the earth to the moon (384400 km) and the diameter of the earth (about 12700 km). Next we measured the diameter of our paper earth (7.5 inches = 19 cm). The ratio of the earth diameter-to-distance-to-moon was determined (about 30). We then multiplied our paper earth diameter by the earth diameter to distance to moon ratio to get relative distance between the earth and the moon (about 575 cm)
Data:
Earth to Moon Distance = 384400 km
Diameter of the earth = 12700 km
Ratio of distance to moon to diameter to earth = 30
Diameter of paper earth = 19 cm
Relative length for distance between earth to moon = 575 cm
Conclusion:
The moon is pretty darn far away. It's about 30 earth diameters away from the center of the earth.
(Picture in first post was taken from our "moon" looking back to our "earth")
Goal: Using cutouts of the earth and moon, along with a tape measure, we created a scaled representation of the distance from the center of the earth to the moon.
Procedure:
We looked up the distance from the earth to the moon (384400 km) and the diameter of the earth (about 12700 km). Next we measured the diameter of our paper earth (7.5 inches = 19 cm). The ratio of the earth diameter-to-distance-to-moon was determined (about 30). We then multiplied our paper earth diameter by the earth diameter to distance to moon ratio to get relative distance between the earth and the moon (about 575 cm)
Data:
Earth to Moon Distance = 384400 km
Diameter of the earth = 12700 km
Ratio of distance to moon to diameter to earth = 30
Diameter of paper earth = 19 cm
Relative length for distance between earth to moon = 575 cm
Conclusion:
The moon is pretty darn far away. It's about 30 earth diameters away from the center of the earth.
(Picture in first post was taken from our "moon" looking back to our "earth")
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