National Park Service/Patrick Myers View larger

What Do You See in Today’s Moon?

New activity

Learners read or listen to a cultural story describing a shape identified in the Moon's surface features.

More details

Open Activity   
Teacher's Guide

Provides classroom connections, key concepts, connections to science standards, and additional resources.

Suggest a Book

Suggest a book or books below:

Cancel or 

Report Miscategorization

Please let us know how this activity could be categorized better:

Cancel or 



  • Rating 
  • Participants Enjoyed the Activity 
    Participants Learned from This Activity 
    Activity Instructions Were Clear and Easy to Follow 
    Would Recommend 

Related Programming Resources

Related Links Handouts:
Moon image handout for this activity
Hina Moves to the Moon: A Hawaiian Story about Our Moon
An Earth-based Tour of the Moon
Night Sky Network Observing the Moon

Websites:
NASA: Moon to Mars
Facts About the Moon
NASA Spaceplace: The Moon
The Moon's Phases in Oreos
NASA on Earth's Moon
A Peek into the Moon's Interior
Exploring the Moon Educator Guide
On the Moon Educator Guide
Last Mission to the Moon
Apollo 11 in Real Time

Images:
Earth's Moon
Global Images of Earth

Videos:
European Space Agency Video: Building a Moon Base
NOVA video: Extreme Temperatures on the Moon
NASA Scientific Visualization Studio: Tour of the Moon 4k
Kid on the Moon
NASA | BEST: Living on the Moon
Originating Source Lunar and Planetary Institute
Related Books
[Suggest a book]
Faces of the Moon by Bob Crelin
The moon and how to observe it. by Peter Grego
Many Moons by Rémi Courgeon and Marion Serre
Here We Are : Notes for Living on Planet Earth by Oliver Jeffers
Looking Up!: The Science of Stargazing by Joe Rao and Mark Borgions
Look Inside Space by Rob Lloyd Jones, Benedetta Giaufret and Enrica Rusiná
Moon Base Alpha Series by Stuart Gibbs and Gibson Frazier
Astronomy: Cool women in space by Anita Yasuda and Lena Chandhok
The Moon Book by Gail Gibbons
How to Be a Space Explorer: Your Out-of-This-World Adventure by Mark Brake
Spaceships and Rockets by Deborah Lock
Science Adventures with Max the Dog by Jeffrey O Bennett and Alan Okamoto
CatStronauts by Drew Brockington

Reviews

 
Rating 
Participants Enjoyed the Activity 
Participants Learned from This Activity 
Activity Instructions Were Clear and Easy to Follow 
Would Recommend 
05/16/2018

Such a great resource for young, diverse astronomers!

Unlike many of the other activities hosted on the STAR_net Activity Clearinghouse, this is not a craft or hands-on activity designed to intersect with specific core science requirements. Instead, it’s an incredibly expansive, fluid, and flexible cultural program which you can adapt and scale to fit almost any need. I found it incredibly useful to read all of the materials and explore all of the resources while setting up an amateur astronomy club here in rural Montana; one can easily adapt it to feature narratives of local tribal groups, Native Americans, First Nations peoples, and other Indigenous peoples. It’s already designed to work with Polynesian-Hawaiian stories. We have utilized it already several times and in several different ways in our Makerspace programs and at the aforementioned amateur astronomy club, and we have high hopes of bringing in a Salish or Kootenai storyteller to continue utilizing these resources in the future.

And yes, you could utilize any number of relevant crafts and hands-on activities with the “What Do You See in Today’s Moon?” activity. We paired it with Remi Courgeon’s “Many Moons” board book, which provides simple visual comparisons of the moon’s various stages, and then asked kids to draw a stage of the moon and draw its visual comparison, too. A banana? A cat’s tail? A wheel of cheese? The comparisons are endless, and something really clicked when we showed them the waxing-to-waning progression in “Many Moons.”

Many thanks to the Lunar and Planetary Institute for this great resource, and to the STAR_net Activity Clearinghouse for rendering it accessible. This is one we will be returning to many times in the coming years!

Write your review!

Write a review

What Do You See in Today’s Moon?

What Do You See in Today’s Moon?

Learners read or listen to a cultural story describing a shape identified in the Moon's surface features.