Magnificent Moon

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

On a clear night, you will be able to see the moon.

You can see the moon at night because it is reflecting the light from the sun, and because it is not very far from Earth.

People have walked on the moon! These people are called astronauts. The picture below shows astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the moon in 1969!

_{Image [cropped] by NASA, via Wikimedia Commons, has no known copyright restrictions.}

On the moon, the gravity is different from that on Earth and other planets. Gravity is what holds things in place. Without gravity, you would float right off Earth!

Are you ready to explore the difference between Earth's gravity and the moon's gravity? Ask your parent or teacher to estimate how high you can jump by watching you. Now, jump! How high did you jump? This is how high you can jump in Earth's gravity.

If you were to jump on the moon, you would jump six times as high as you did on Earth! For example, if you jumped a foot off the ground, on the moon you would jump six feet in the air. Wow, that's high!

The moon revolves around the Earth. It takes the moon 28 days to circle around the Earth one time. While the moon is revolving around the Earth, it changes phases.

The moon's phases are stages that change while the moon revolves around the Earth. As the moon moves around Earth, the amount of light it gets from the sun changes. This causes the lunar phases.

• When there is a new moon, the moon is between the Earth and the sun. You cannot see the moon during this phase because the sun lights up the side of the moon you cannot see.
• During the first quarter, you will see half of the moon being lit up. The side that is reflecting the light is closest to the sun. The other side remains dark.
• Next is the full moon. The whole moon is reflecting light from the sun.
• The final phase is the last quarter. Only one half of the moon reflects the light during this quarter, and as time goes on, the moon will get darker and darker until it is a new moon again.

Check out the moon picture below. This picture shows how the moon changes as it revolves around the Earth:

Did you feel excited exploring the moon? Tell your parent or teacher what the phases of the moon are.

After sharing, move on to the Got It? section. In the next section, you will learn more about the moon, and you will get to see astronauts on the moon!