What causes the phases of the moon?
While doing this experiment, the styrofoam ball represented the earth, the flashlight the sun and the mini styrofoam sphere,the moon. During the experiment we discovered that when the sun is behind the moon it would be a new moon for us, we wouldn't see the moon. When the moon is on the sides of the earth, compared to the sun, we would only see half of the moon, it would be a half moon and finally when the moon is one the opposite side of the earth, compared to the sun, we would see a full moon. You might ask yourself... Was the darkness of a new moon caused by an eclipse? Well the answer is NO, the eclipses and the new moons are totaly different things because, eclipses are when the light of the sun is blocked by the earth so the moon can't receive any of the sun's light. While the new moon is when the sun is behind the moon so people on earth can only see the shadowy part of the moon.
I think that making a model make us see and understand better the phases of the moon. I think that models help us to understand better, especially visual persons, because we can see it ourself with our own eyes. While when somebody only explains it to you you can have problems imagining the correct thing, soo you don't understand. The only negative thing with models is that they can take time and it can take for more that one person to build it. I think that another way to understand better the moon would be using online models, images, or even videos, those take less space and time.
Here are the pictures we took:
While doing this experiment, the styrofoam ball represented the earth, the flashlight the sun and the mini styrofoam sphere,the moon. During the experiment we discovered that when the sun is behind the moon it would be a new moon for us, we wouldn't see the moon. When the moon is on the sides of the earth, compared to the sun, we would only see half of the moon, it would be a half moon and finally when the moon is one the opposite side of the earth, compared to the sun, we would see a full moon. You might ask yourself... Was the darkness of a new moon caused by an eclipse? Well the answer is NO, the eclipses and the new moons are totaly different things because, eclipses are when the light of the sun is blocked by the earth so the moon can't receive any of the sun's light. While the new moon is when the sun is behind the moon so people on earth can only see the shadowy part of the moon.
I think that making a model make us see and understand better the phases of the moon. I think that models help us to understand better, especially visual persons, because we can see it ourself with our own eyes. While when somebody only explains it to you you can have problems imagining the correct thing, soo you don't understand. The only negative thing with models is that they can take time and it can take for more that one person to build it. I think that another way to understand better the moon would be using online models, images, or even videos, those take less space and time.
Here are the pictures we took:
Interesting layout of your report. I like the images you created in paint. They were very clear. I am glad that you learned better by using the model and you were able to explain why we see the phases of the moon. Good job!
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