Using planetary maps, students will be able to read cartographic information and compare the environmental conditions of The Moon to those Earth. They will understand the conditions needed for life to exist, and be able to explain why it cannot exist on The Moon.

Students will explore the relationships and patterns among the Earth, Sun, and Moon system in our solar system. Students will design, build, and test a model of a lunar rover.

Students will learn about interactions between objects in the solar system that influence phenomena observed from Earth. This includes both solar and lunar eclipses. They will develop and use a model of the Sun-Earth-Moon system to describe the eclipses of the Sun and Moon. 

Field Trip to the Moon. This is from the American Natural History Museum and it will take your students on a Field Trip to the Moon.

Move the sun, earth, moon and space station to see how it affects their gravitational forces and orbital paths. Visualize the sizes and distances between different heavenly bodies, and turn off gravity to see what would happen without it!

Can you avoid the boulder field and land safely, just before your fuel runs out, as Neil Armstrong did in 1969? Our version of this classic video game accurately simulates the real motion of the lunar lander with the correct mass, thrust, fuel consumption rate, and lunar gravity. The real lunar lander is very hard to control.

Can you avoid the boulder field and land safely, just before your fuel runs out, as Neil Armstrong did in 1969? Our version of this classic video game accurately simulates the real motion of the lunar lander with the correct mass, thrust, fuel consumption rate, and lunar gravity. The real lunar lander is very hard to control.

In this 30 to 45 minute activity, children (in teams of 4-5) experiment to create craters and learn about the landscape of the moon. The children make observations on how the size and mass, direction, and velocity of the projectile impacts the size and shape of the crater.

Converting a visual experience to a tactile one, this activity lets visually impaired students learn and explore our Moon and its characteristics.

In this Night Sky Activity, students use a simple indoor Earth-Moon-Sun model to explore and learn about Moon phases and eclipses. Many children (and adults) have misconceptions about what causes the phases of the Moon, and helping them confront those misconceptions with evidence makes this activity pretty enthralling. While it’s pretty easy to see the phases of the Moon in the sky, it’s not possible from our perspective to observe the entire system, which often leads to inaccurate explanations of what’s going on, most commonly that Moon phases are caused by Earth’s shadow. It’s a perfect situation to use a scientific model. Students are challenged to use the model to struggle to figure out, develop understanding of, and explain the phases of the Moon, discuss ideas with others, then adjust their ideas based on evidence from the model. This activity usually includes a lot of big, “aha’s!” as participants encounter evidence while using the model that often contradicts what they previously thought was going on.

It can be hard to make learning about the night sky student-centered, but that’s what this activity does: students trade and discuss cards, then take charge of finding and pointing out the different objects. When an object is found, the instructor may share some interesting information to feed students’ curiosity, but the primary focus is on students finding, wondering about, and discussing different objects.

During this activity, students try to find and discuss a variety of items during a night hike, such as, “evidence of an amphibian (frog croaks),” puzzlers that they’re challenged to figure out, such as “the fastest thing in the Universe” (light), and items from the night sky, such as “a natural satellite of Earth” (the Moon), or “something bigger than our Sun,” (other stars).

Explore the celestial objects of our Solar System (planets, comets, spacecrafts, etc...) using this interactive website.

This interactive, month-long unit on the phases of the moon includes a nearpod video, chart and model/project ideas to help students develop and use a model of the Sun-Earth-Moon system to describe the cyclic patterns of lunar phases.Utah 6th Grade SEEd Core 6.1.1

This is a lesson plan designed to teach the phases of the moon to sixth grade students. They will use IPADS to create a presentation to show their undestanding.  They should be able to identify all the phases of the moon and their order.   (Picture taken by my son Max)

Students build a model of the Sun-Earth-Moon system, exploring how the Moon revolves around the Earth, and the Earth around the Sun. Students play a memory game and learn some characteristics about the three objects.