For my inquiry project, I am focusing on Moon Myths and realities. I interviewed a 7th grade girl, whose name coincidentally means "moon." Here are some questions I asked her and also a few I added based on her responses. Go through these questions yourself and put in your "two cents" about what you'd like to learn about the moon, too!

Do you ever look at the moon? What does it look like to you?   Have you ever heard about the man on the moon? What other stories or folktales have you heard about the moon?    What do you think happens with the moon?   Why do celestial bodies spin on their axis?    Does the moon have an orbit?    Why are planets round?    Is there anything you think would be cool to learn about the moon?

One thing that came out of the interview is how much people focus on the pattern of the moon. I guess I always just look at the size, whether its waxing or waning and don’t focus too much on the holes. My interviewee made reference to the holes a few times, so I know that is a point of interest I should cover in my project.

I would also like to spend sometime researching folktales and myths from around the world that include the moon. There was also a hoax that the New York Times published in the 1920’s where people believed furry batmen lived on the moon and apparently there was a campaign to raise money for the furry batmen. It is definitely odd and intriguing, perfect YA material for a lesson. It could talk about politics and social concerns, about the ability of a crowd to be swayed, that you can’t always believe what you read, etc.

My interviewee hasn’t really covered much astronomy yet in school, so it seems natural that her responses may be based on more what is perceived by an on-looker. My interviewee stated that she knew the Earth rotated but the moon did not. The moon actually does rotate on its axis, but it gives the appearance it does not because it is orbiting at the same pace. “The moon orbits the Earth once every 27.322 days. It also takes approximately 27 days for the moon to rotate once on its axis. As a result, the moon does not seem to be spinning but appears to observers from Earth to be keeping almost perfectly still. Scientists call this synchronous rotation 28, 2014” (Space.com, 2017) I also thought it was interesting her reason for why it doesn’t rotate, she didn’t really know why and I could tell her in her response that she was not confident in her reasoning, but she came up with one anyway. “The Earth does rotate but the Moon does not rotate. Why would it rotate? The earth has all these continents and countries.” So, there is some lack of understanding as to why celestial bodies rotate. To my knowledge it is related to gravity. There also has been introspection about the shape of the moon, which is actually a slightly squished circle, more oval-like. Most people think it's round. But my interviewee raised a good point, why is it round? Why not a square? My thought is that it has something to do with the gravitational pull as well. I will have to research this myself, too.

This project also brings me to the point that I think this is also it’s common for a lot of YA’s, especially girls, to feel that way in science class as the discussions get dominated by a few “know-it-alls” and the teachers, as a result, may assume everyone “gets it” and not allow extra time for others to process and learn. There are less women in science, specifically astronomy and engineering, and I do think there’s something to how they start out in middle school. In one of my other courses last year, I did a research paper on female students in science. Here is a few excerpts discussing this:

"Besides the discord between academic skills and their application to the real world, women, as a whole, are less likely to go into certain sciences, which often have higher salaries. Only 12% of computer science graduates are females. This doesn’t hold true, however for biology and chemistry, which has about half of its graduates as females (Usnews, 2014)."

"What influences a woman to pick her chosen major and career field? Girls historically have steered away from science degrees, while their male counterparts dominate the industry. (Usnews, 2014)."

"Is there anything we do in early childhood classrooms that affirm the histories we have told and limitations we put on women? There are some specific actions that encourage boys to explore math and science, but not girls. For instance, boys receive more math and science-related toys than do girls. (NEA, 2016) By the 3rd grade, 51% of boys have used a microscope in class—just 37% of girls have. (NEA, 2016) A recent study found that 71% of male teachers are more likely to attribute boys’ success in technology to talent, while dismissing girls’ success as luck or diligence. (NEA, 2016) Children’s science programs feature three times as many male characters as female characters and twice as many male scientists as female scientists. (NEA, 2016)"

Resources

National Education Association (NEA). (2016). Learning While Female. Retrieved from: http://www.nea.org/tools/15863.html

UsNews. (2014). Getting Girls to Study Stem. Retrieved from: http://www.usnews.com/news/stem-solutions/articles/2014/05/05/getting-girls-to-study-stem-its-about-more-than-just-making-science-cool