Savasia Mangual, Megan McLaughlin, Briannie Castillo
Earth Science Exit Project
802
Moon Following
Background Information:
We began our project knowing that we wanted to study something that had to do with the moon. One thing came to mind when we were discussing the moon was how come the moon always looks like it is following us if we are driving or walking or just traveling anywhere. So we said that we wanted to build our project around that idea.
We started out needing to find basic information on the moon. We started out with the mass of the moon that is 7.34. We found out that the density if the of the moon 3.34 (gm/cm). Last piece of information that was really important to us was how far away the moon from earth was. We found the moon is 384,403 kilometers (2,163 miles.) The moon travels around the earth once per month, that is called a cycle. The time between the sequences in new moons is 29.5 days.
Question:
How far does the moon travel in a certain amount of time? And does it move the same distance in that same amount of time?
Hypothesis:
We knew that the moon travels. We knew that because the moon travels around the earth, and that is how we get day and night, we also new that it travels around because of the moon cycles. We thought that if we times how far the moon would go in a certain amount of time, it would move but we just would not notice it until we measured it. But one of our major guesses was that after the fact when we measured the moon for about 6 weeks and we compared the measurements they really would not have a pattern. But we are really not sure if it will or if it won’t.
Materials:
Empty paper towel roll
Protractor
Bobby pin
String
Graphing transparent paper
3 sharpies
Tape
Procedure:
1. The first time we did the experiment we went to Megan’s balcony. But the thing that we did was to do it every hour but eventually that was taking to long and we weren’t getting enough points. Then we changed and started to do the project on Savasia’s roof.
2. We go up to Savasia’s roof top and find the spot where we can see the moon the best. Then we mark the spot with a piece of tape so we know where we were standing
3. We make we know the time so we know when you come back up. One person holds on to the paper towel roll up to the ski pointing do that the moon is right in the center of the roll.
4. Then another person make a spot on the excite spot were the first person see the moon in the roll.
5. Then a third person takes a protractor and sticks a string into the hole at the bottom of the protractor, then tie a bobby to the bottom of the string.
6. Then that third person hold the protractor next to the paper towel roll and let the string hang and that would be the angle measurement.
7. Make sure that you record everything that you do.
8. Repeat this about 2 more times every half hour. Make sure that you record EVERYTHING that you notice, so thing, everything. Also when you are recording where the moon is make sure you use different color markers each time you graph where the moon is at that time.
Experiment:
The first location we did the experiment at was on Megan’s balcony. We had decided to make all of our marks and record our data every hour to see how far it would move. But by the third mark we couldn’t even see the moon anymore. It had gone behind the building. So that’s when we figured out that we should change our location to somewhere we have enough space to move around and look at the moon and we reduced the time to every half an hour. With this change we got more results. Another thing that we had changed was that we started taking down measurements of the degrees that way we could know how much the moon had moved in degrees then we would find out how much it moved in measurement like inches, centimeters, etc.
We thought it was better for us to do it every half an hour, because we got more measurements and it was easier to find the moon. One problem that we were having was that one was actually taking notes on what was going on. Everyone was busy helping with the actual experiment, no one was writing down the problems we were having and things like that. We also did not have anyone to take pictures or any proof of the experiment.
Analyzing Data:
Conclusion:
We do not have actual conclusions because or project is not done yet. But from what we did together as a group we do know that when the moon travels it does have some kind of a pattern. As we continue our studies now our main goal will be to find out exactly what that pattern is. So for now I would have to say our conclusion is that the moon will move the same distance each half hour, every day each time.( from what we have seen so far.)So the things that we would change was actually having people take notes about the experiment and we should of started earlier that way because we also had trouble seeing the moon sometimes. Like there were a couple of times that we went on the roof and didn’t see anything one of the reasons we didn’t see it was that because the time was changing and the moon started coming out later and it was hard for us to stay and do the project together as a group and we had to get home. Another reason why we couldn’t see the moon on those days was that because the moon just didn’t come out. And I remember that we even went online to see if we could go to the roof on certain days because the moon would be there
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