We agreed that our Mystery Sun phenomenon never had night appear, and unlike here in Chicago, the moon didn't appear in either the day or the night. We figured our next steps should be figuring out about the moon, and how that could possibly help us explain what was going on (or not going on) with the Mystery Sun.
Here is our initial thinking about how we see the moon during both the day and the night (since we have experienced seeing the moon during both these timeframes...even just the other morning at pick-up time from the playground)!
Here is our initial thinking about how we see the moon during both the day and the night (since we have experienced seeing the moon during both these timeframes...even just the other morning at pick-up time from the playground)!
From our initial models, we thought it was important we establish some rules on how the moon orbits the Earth, and also keep in mind what we know about the size of the moon as it compares to the Earth and the Sun, too.
Since the last picture above didn't make sense to us (that night time on Earth meant we didn't experience seeing a moon--which we DO)...
We should really be thinking about size/scale YET AGAIN! Looking at a size comparison, here is what the size differential really is between the Earth, moon and Sun.
This shows us that light can reach the moon when it's on the opposite side of the Earth in its orbit.We agreed again, that despite differences in our models, that turning to a 3D experience might help us! Using ourselves as the Earth, the SMARTBoard as the sun, and a ping-pong ball (half painted black) as the moon, we could figure out why we see the moon both during the day and the night. It really helped us see how we could see the moon at different times of both night and day.
We developed a consensus model as a class, and used an online simulator to solidify our thinking about patterns with the moon, Earth, and Sun. Here are some individual representations, along with our consensus model.
We developed a consensus model as a class, and used an online simulator to solidify our thinking about patterns with the moon, Earth, and Sun. Here are some individual representations, along with our consensus model.
We've answered a bunch of questions on our DQB from this study about the moon, but we're still not super sure of the Mystery Sun yet. We do see from the simulator that night time doesn't show us what we experience, which is seeing other stars besides the Sun. Does seeing other stars at night help us better understand what is going on with the Mystery Sun not seeing other stars at night? Here's hoping!