Week 7- Science Methods II

What question are we investigating?

For the sixth week of Science Methods II, we would begin to ask the question: “How the distances and size are for the main four planets and moon”. We did this through talking in small groups over how to make the four main planets and moon. This would be done through making a model for the planet and moon by showing the distance between each of them.

What did we do in lab to investigate this question?

The teacher would start out by allowing everyone in small groups to talk about the different ways to think about how to do the sizes for Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, and Mars. This would allow us to use prior knowledge over this to think about this before her giving us a website that helped with this information for the size for them. It also would allow us to know how far to put each of the planets and moon to show how far they are from each other. This would allow my small group to use a measuring meter ruler to make the sizes for the planets and moon. This would be done through using a mechanical pencil that had 0.7 lead to create the smaller planets ,using play-dough for the ones that were bigger, and using a color pencil container to represent the Sun . This would allow me to visually see how small the planets and moon are compared to the Sun. It also would allow me to see how far the planets and moon are compared to one another in a better visual way. 

What did we figure out?

Another important part would be in the lecture on Thursday where we again talked about the “lines” on Earth and different theories over how the moon phases happen. This would allow me to get a clear understanding of how the “lines” of Earth help me to see how the seasons work within them. This would be done through doing examples and talking with small groups before discussing it as a whole group. Another critical part shown in the lecture would be when he talked about how different religions or cultures have different theories over the phases of the moon and will be important to allow your future students to talk about in the classroom settings. This will allow them to work on some of the misconceptions they have about science concepts like moon phases. An example of this can be Hinduism and believing that moon phases are an act of God. This would be an interesting theory I had never heard of before and allowed me to see how it’s important to show students the different forms of misconceptions they have in the classroom settings. 

What are new or remaining questions after the investigation? 

This lab and discussion taught me more about the size and distance between the main four planets and the moon. It also would allow me to talk about prior knowledge we talked about last week and begin to get a better understanding of these new science concepts for me. Lastly, this new information would allow me to get a better visual for how the solar system works.