How does the position of the moon in relation to the Earth determine how much we see of it?  How can we create a graphical representation of this to model what happens?  And how can we make predictions for when we will see specific moon phases based on patterns in the mathematical models?  Check back soon...we shall see!  

​We continue to gather plant data on our grass seeds...so check out the post below!

Students saw a repeating pattern as the amount of the moon illuminated decreased and then increased.  They could determine when the next approximate full moon would be, as well as the next new moon.  

"So that's how we could know when the next full moon would be even though that day hadn't happened yet!!!"

YES!

 Now that we can look at data with a more critical eye, we're starting to see how collecting and interpreting data can help tell a story.

Using sunrise and sunset data, fifth graders are determining the amount of elapsed time between when a city on Earth first faces the sun (sunrise) and when that same location no longer sees the sun because it's turned away from it (sunset).

Using the elapsed time data, students are graphing them to see what this looks like at four different cities over the Earth, all of which have a different latitude (Chicago, USA; Nuuk, Greenland; Quito, Ecuador; and Buenos Aires, Argentina.  Check back soon as we look to uncover trends in the data!