A Guide to Exploring the Moon

About This Book

This book is about the Moon. It has facts and fun activities for learning about Earth and space.

It comes from NASA. NASA is the government group that studies space.

This book is free for anyone to copy. Teachers can use it in class.

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Who Made This Book

Many people helped make this book. Teachers tried out the activities in classrooms in Hawai'i first. Scientists and NASA workers checked the activities to make sure they were good.

One activity came from a group called the Challenger Center. They let the book use their idea about how astronauts might live and breathe in space (this is called a "life support system").

About the Cover

The cover has three pictures of the Moon. They show how we have learned more about the Moon over time:

• An old map of the Moon from long ago
• A footprint left by an astronaut from Apollo 11
• A drawing of a future Moon home, made by an artist

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What's Inside This Book

• Facts about a special box of Moon rocks (called the Lunar Sample Disk)
• Facts about a set of Moon pictures (called a slide set)
• Charts that show what skills each activity teaches
• A Teacher's Guide called "The Moon: Gateway to the Solar System" — this explains the Moon's story
• A fact sheet called "Moon ABCs"
• A fact sheet called "Rock ABCs"
• A chart showing what we've learned about the Moon from 1959 to 1997
• 17 activities to do in class
• A list of hard words and what they mean (called a Glossary)
• More things teachers can use

The activities take different amounts of time. Some take one class. Some take many classes.

The activities are split into three groups:

1. Before Apollo — things to do before the Moon rocks arrive
2. Learning from Apollo — things to do while the Moon rocks are at your school
3. The Future — things to do after the Moon rocks are sent back

Each activity has:

• What it teaches
• Background facts
• Steps to follow
• Questions to answer
• A list of things you need

Hard words are shown in bold. You can look them up in the Glossary at the back.

Most activities use metric measurements, like centimeters and grams. Sometimes English measurements are used too, like cups, if that's what a tool is called.

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About the Lunar Sample Disk

Real Moon rocks came back to Earth during the Apollo Space Program, when astronauts flew to the Moon. NASA lets schools borrow tiny pieces of these rocks!

Six small samples of Moon rock and Moon dirt (called regolith) are sealed inside a round plastic disk. The disk is about as big as a small dinner plate.

Schools can borrow the disk for one or two weeks. It comes with:

• This book
• A set of Moon pictures (slides)
• Photos and information about each rock sample

How to Borrow a Disk

Teachers must first go to a special class to learn the safety rules for handling the rocks. Then they send a written request to NASA at least one month before they want to borrow it.

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About the Slide Set

There are 36 photo slides that go along with this book. Each slide has a caption that explains what it shows.

The pictures show:

• What we knew about the Moon before Apollo (from telescopes)
• The Apollo Moon missions
• Astronauts working on the Moon
• The highlands (light, bumpy areas) and the maria (dark, flat areas)
• How the Moon may have formed
• Ideas for future trips to the Moon

You can get these slides from NASA too.

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THE MOON: GATEWAY TO THE SOLAR SYSTEM

Teacher's Guide

By G. Jeffrey Taylor, PhD

When astronauts dug into the Moon's ground during the Apollo missions, they weren't just digging up dirt. In a way, they were like time travelers!

The rocks and dirt they brought back hold important clues. These clues can tell us:

• How Earth and the Moon were formed
• When the Moon first melted, and how
• How many space rocks crashed into the Moon over time
• Even facts about the history of the Sun

We can't learn all this by studying rocks on Earth. Why? Because Earth changes too much. Mountains rise. Volcanoes erupt. Wind and water wear rocks away. Big pieces of Earth's crust called tectonic plates crash together and destroy old clues.

The Moon, Front and Back

Look at pictures of the Moon. One shows the side we always see from Earth. Another shows mostly the far side, which we can't see from Earth.

You'll notice two kinds of land on the Moon:

• The highlands — light-colored areas covered in craters (holes made by space rocks crashing down)
• The maria — darker, smoother areas. These formed when melted rock called lava filled in low spots and hardened.

One mystery: there are fewer maria on the far side of the Moon than on the near side. Nobody knows exactly why!

The far side has many, many craters close together. These craters tell us the Moon was hit by space rocks a long, long time ago. This same crashing probably happened to early Earth too.