Second Nature Following the Moon

"I

By Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center

s the moon following me?” We have all heard questions like this from our little ones, who are naturally curious about the moon. With the longest nights of the year here, this is the time for moon-watching, so let’s bundle up and head outside after dark! To become familiar with the moon, go out many evenings at the same time. Keeping a moon calendar will help you follow how it changes. Choose a spot in your yard where you have a wide view of the sky. If you can see the moon, where in the sky is it? What shape is it? How bright is it? What color is the moon? If the moon is full, do you see any shapes in the face? Draw a picture of the moon and jot

down anything you notice in the night sky. If you want to further your celestial investigations, you can extend your observations to the clusters and arrangements of stars above and track their changes over time, too. The moon is the Earth’s only natural satellite. The moon completes an orbit around the earth about once a month (moonth). Like all objects in the solar system, half of the moon is always sunlit and half is in shadow. The different moon phases are a result of how much of the sunlit surface is visible during different stages of the moon’s orbit. With a light, a dark room and a ball (clay, pale yarn, a tennis ball) stuck on a pencil, you can experiment with these faraway

concepts. The light is the sun, the ball is the moon and the learner’s head is the Earth, with their nose representing where they stand on the Earth. Begin with the experimenter facing the lamp (noon) holding the moon toward the sun. Only the dark side of the moon will be visible, the new moon. As the moon begins to orbit the Earth, the learner will see the phases of the moon

Photo credit: Creative Commons/Kevin Gill

18

parentexpress • December 2016

Photo credit: Creative Commons/Sandeep Gangadharan

There are many different stories and folktales about the moon. Visit your local library to see what you can find to complement your moon explorations. A few to look for: “Owl Moon” by Jane Yolen and John Schoenherr

“Bringing Down the Moon” by Jonathan Emmett and Vanessa Cabban

– crescent, quarter, gibbous, full – and then the sequence reversed as the orbit continues and the moon wanes. If your moon students are advanced, you can track what time the moon will rise and set at each phase. For each moon phase, have the moon and sun remain fixed while the Earth rotates to the right. Using peripheral vision, the learner can note when they first see the moon appear and disappear. Remember, when the nose faces the sun it is noon, away from the sun is midnight. With the Earth on its vertical axis, dawn and dusk are also 12 hours apart. The new moon will be in the sky (though not



illuminated) from sunrise to sunset. The full moon should appear in the east as the sun disappears in the west. As the moon orbits the Earth, it appears in the sky about 50 minutes later each night/day. If you are out every night, you are bound to have some magical evenings. You could see an owl float silently across the night sky, shooting stars, moon dogs… So, grab your Thermos of hot chocolate and head out to follow the moon.

“Goodnight Moon” by Margaret Brown and Clement Hurd.

Second Nature is submitted by the naturalists at Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center in West Brattleboro. For more information and current events, visit www.beec.org or call 802-257-5785.

parentexpress • December 201619