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Down on the Moon
Guiding Question
How well would you survive on the moon?
Objectives
- Generate reasonable questions about your environment, based on your knowledge and observations.
- Motivate students to question the following:
- How do scientists ask questions that help them learn about the world?
- How do scientists figure out answers to their questions by investigating the world?
- How do scientists reconstruct knowledge to answer their questions?
- Develop solutions to unfamiliar problems through reasoning, observation and/or experimentation.
- Practice deductive reasoning
- Introduce concepts pertaining to space exploration: Microgravity, Safety, Prioritization, Mission Objectives.
Concepts
- Motivating students to ask questions that help them learn about the world.
- Figuring out answers by critically analyzing given information.
- Communicating their ideas and findings with their peers through group interaction.
- Gravity. The gravitational attraction between the earth and surrounding objects, causing objects to fall towards the earth.
- Microgravity. What we call weightlessness; when the pull of gravity is negligible.
- Safety. Avoiding and curtailing dangers as much as possible.
- Prioritization. Ranking of essential needs to complete a mission or goal. Mission Objectives-The goals and achievments of a mission need to fulfill the mission's purpose.
Principles
- Critical Thinking. Using logic to analyze a problem or evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of claims, arguments, or data.
- Decision Making. Choosing a course of action to perform or complete a task.
- Problem Solving. The process of identifying and defining a problem, exploring possible strategies, acting on the strategies and looking back to evaluate the results of your decision.
- Teamwork. The ability to share and communicate ideas in order to achieve a common goal and activities in the best interest of your group.
Materials
- Paper
- Pencil
Room Preparation
Explain the lesson and hand out lesson pages to students.
Safety Preparations
None
Procedures and Activities
You are a member of a Lunar flight scheduled to land at an established base on the Moon. Due to mechanical difficulties, you and your teammates were forced to land at a spot approximately 400 km from the base. During the landing, much of the equipment was severely damaged.
Your survival depends upon reaching the base, therefore only the most critical items of those remaining must be chosen for the 400 km trip. Below are listed the 15 items remaining operable or undamaged after the forced landing. Your task is to place them in rank order in terms of their importance for assisting you and your teammates to the safety of the base.
Place the number 1 by the most important item, number 2 by the second, and so on through the number 15 for the least important. Keep in mind that you are wearing a space suit. First, do this ranking for yourself, then consult with your teammates for a discussion and consensus ranking.
| List of Supplies | ||
|---|---|---|
| Item | Your Rank | Team Rank |
| Box of matches | ||
| Food Concentrate | ||
| 50 ft. Nylon rope | ||
| Parachute | ||
| Portable Heating Unit | ||
| 45mm Caliber Pistol | ||
| Case of dehydrated milk | ||
| Two 10-lb. tanks of Oxygen | ||
| Moon Constellation Map | ||
| Self-inflating life raft | ||
| Magnetic Compass | ||
| Five gallons of water | ||
| Self-igniting signal with flares | ||
| First aid kit with Hypodermic needles | ||
| Solar powered FM transceiver | ||
Now that you have ranked the items, here is one sample solution. Note that this is not the only solution to this problem. The idea is to have a valid reason for ranking the items the way that you did.
| List of Supplies (in order of ranking by NASA experts) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Item | NASA Expert Rank | Rationale |
| Two 10lb. tanks of Oxygen | 1 | Most pressing survival requirement. |
| Five gallons of water | 2 | Vital replacement of tremendous liquid loss on the lighted side of the moon. |
| Moon Constellation Map | 3 | Primary means of navigation. |
| Food Concentrate | 4 | Efficient means of supplying energy requirements |
| Solar powered FM transceiver | 5 | For communication with the mother ship on line of sight. |
| 50 ft. Nylon rope | 6 | Useful in scaling cliffs or in case of injury |
| First aid kit with Hypodermic needles | 7 | Needles, medicines, and vitamins fit special suit aperture. |
| Parachute | 8 | Since there is no air on the moon, it would be ineffective as a parachute, but it could possibly be used as a sun shield. |
| Self-inflating life raft | 9 | Although the raft itself would be irrelevant as a flotation device in a waterless environment, the CO2 bottle attached to the raft could be used for propulsion. |
| Self-igniting signal with flares | 10 | Distress signal when mother ship is sighted. |
| 45mm Caliber Pistol | 11 | Even if you're on the best of terms with your travel companions, it's still a possible means of self propulsion. |
| Case of dehydrated milk | 12 | Bulkier duplication of energy source. |
| Portable Heating Unit | 13 | Not needed unless you're planning to venture to the dark side. |
| Magnetic Compass | 14 | Magnetic fields of moon are not polarized, so the compass is useless. |
| Box of matches | 15 | Since there is no air on moon, matches will not burn. |
Calculate the difference between your rankings and those of the experts at NASA. Calculate the difference between the NASA Expert ranking and the individual or group ranking numbers. Then find your total score and your team's total score by adding the numbers in the appropriate difference column in this table:
| List of Supplies | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Item | Your Rank | Team Rank | NASA Expert Rank | Your Difference | Team Difference |
| Box of matches | 15 | ||||
| Food Concentrate | 4 | ||||
| 50 ft. Nylon rope | 6 | ||||
| Parachute | 8 | ||||
| Portable Heating Unit | 13 | ||||
| 45mm caliber pistol | 11 | ||||
| Case of dehydrated milk | 12 | ||||
| Two 10-lb. tanks of Oxygen | 1 | ||||
| Moon Constellation Map | 3 | ||||
| Self-inflating life raft | 9 | ||||
| Magnetic Compass | 14 | ||||
| Five gallons of water | 2 | ||||
| Self-igniting signal with flares | 10 | ||||
| First aid kit with Hypodermic needles | 7 | ||||
| Solar powered FM transceiver | 5 | ||||
| TOTALS > > > | |||||
Scoring
- 0-26 - Excellent! You can leave for the moon any time you like!
- 26-32 - Good
- 33-45 - Average
- 46-55 - Fair
- 56-70 - Poor
- 71-112 - Very Poor—remember, you're on the moon, not the Earth!
Evaluation
Summarize the experiment; discuss students' results. During class discussion, make sure the students understand the effects of the moon's unique environment. The students should understand that the moon has no atmosphere, and therefore no oxygen, which is necessary to use the matches. The students should understand the reasons listed in Table 2, which tells why some supplies are useful and some are not.
Integrate results with concepts; discuss possible extensions. Note creative use of supplies and share ideas amongst groups after each group has calculated their score.
Links to Careers
Identify careers that may be associated with the lesson. These communication skills and deductive reasoning skills are the cornerstone of the following career fields:
- Science
- Physics
- Chemistry
- Biology
- Medicine
- Zoology
- Botany
- Political Science
- Natural Resources
- Engineering
- Aerospace
- Mechanical
- Civil
- Biomedical
- Chemical
- Environmental
- Electrical
- Computer
- Mathematics
- Statistics
- Theoretical