Exploring Our World: Scientific Inquiry and Discovery · 3rd Year

Active learning ideas

The Moon's Surface and Features

Active learning works for this topic because students need to SEE why the Moon’s lack of atmosphere and water shapes its surface so differently from Earth. Dropping marbles into flour, sketching maps, and role-playing colony life make abstract ideas concrete and memorable.

• NCCA Curriculum Specifications
• NCCA: Primary - Earth and Space
• NCCA: Primary - The Sky

• 25–45 min
• Pairs → Whole Class
• 4 activities

Activity 01

• Gallery Walk
• 35 min · Small Groups

Demonstration: Crater Formation Lab

Fill trays with flour topped by cocoa powder. Students drop small and large pebbles from varying heights, observe splash patterns, and measure crater sizes. Discuss how velocity and mass affect results, linking to meteor impacts.

Compare the surface features of the Moon to those found on Earth.

Facilitation Tip

During the Crater Formation Lab, circulate with a tray of flour and marbles to help students adjust drop heights and observe how speed changes rim size.

What to look for

Pose the question: 'Imagine you are a geologist exploring the Moon. What three surface features would you prioritize studying and why, considering what we know about their formation and the Moon's environment?' Encourage students to reference specific terms like craters, maria, and regolith.

• Understand
• Apply
• Analyze
• Create
• Relationship Skills
• Social Awareness

Activity 02

• Concept Mapping
• 30 min · Pairs

Concept Mapping: Lunar vs Earth Surfaces

Provide printed Moon photos and Earth images. Pairs label craters, maria, mountains on both, then compare erosion evidence. Share findings on class chart paper.

Explain how craters are formed on the Moon's surface.

Facilitation Tip

When mapping lunar vs Earth surfaces, provide colored pencils and a legend key so students visually track highlands, maria, and craters.

What to look for

Provide students with images of both lunar and Earth surface features (e.g., a lunar crater, the Giant's Causeway, a lunar mare, a volcanic plain on Earth). Ask them to label each image and write one sentence comparing or contrasting its formation process with another feature shown.

• Understand
• Analyze
• Create
• Self-Awareness
• Self-Management

Activity 03

• Gallery Walk
• 45 min · Small Groups

Role-Play: Moon Colony Challenges

Groups draw Moon base blueprints, listing surface issues like dust and craters. Present solutions, such as domed habitats. Vote on best ideas class-wide.

Predict the challenges of living on the Moon based on its environment.

Facilitation Tip

For the Role-Play activity, assign specific roles (engineer, geologist, doctor) so students must justify their solutions using surface feature knowledge.

What to look for

On an index card, have students draw a simple diagram of a lunar crater and label its key parts. Then, ask them to write one sentence explaining how this feature differs from a similar feature on Earth due to the Moon's lack of atmosphere.

• Understand
• Apply
• Analyze
• Create
• Relationship Skills
• Social Awareness

Activity 04

• Gallery Walk
• 25 min · Whole Class

Observation: Phase Viewer Models

Use globes and lamps to simulate Moon phases while noting surface views. Students rotate positions, sketch features visible at different angles.

Compare the surface features of the Moon to those found on Earth.

Facilitation Tip

While students build Phase Viewer Models, ask guiding questions like 'Where would the Sun’s light hit first if the Moon were tilted this way?'

What to look for

Pose the question: 'Imagine you are a geologist exploring the Moon. What three surface features would you prioritize studying and why, considering what we know about their formation and the Moon's environment?' Encourage students to reference specific terms like craters, maria, and regolith.

• Understand
• Apply
• Analyze
• Create
• Relationship Skills
• Social Awareness

A few notes on teaching this unit

Teachers approach this topic by grounding every activity in a hands-on experience students can touch, see, and discuss immediately. Avoid lectures about erosion or tectonics until students have felt the difference between impact craters and volcanic formations themselves. Research shows that when students manipulate models, their misconceptions about static features shrink faster than with diagrams alone.

Successful learning looks like students using precise vocabulary to explain how craters and maria form, comparing lunar and Earth features with evidence from their own experiments, and applying this knowledge to solve real-world problems in their moon colony challenge.

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Watch Out for These Misconceptions

• During the Crater Formation Lab, watch for students assuming all bowl-shaped pits come from volcanoes. Redirect by asking them to compare their marble-created craters to photos of lunar craters, noting the raised rims and lack of lava in both.

  During the Crater Formation Lab, have students photograph their craters and measure rim heights with rulers. Then, reveal Apollo mission images showing identical features without volcanic rock, forcing them to revise their explanations in lab groups.

• During the Mapping activity, watch for students calling maria 'seas' or 'oceans.' Redirect by passing around basalt samples and comparing their porous texture to smooth glassy volcanic rocks.

  During the Mapping activity, ask students to sort printed images into two piles: 'water-like' and 'rock-like.' Then, provide Apollo mission data showing maria are 3.5 billion-year-old lava flows, not liquid water.

• During the Role-Play activity, watch for students describing the Moon’s surface as flat except for craters. Redirect by handing out topographic maps of lunar highlands and asking them to plan routes between peaks.

  During the Role-Play activity, require each team to include at least two highland regions in their colony site plans and justify why those areas are safer or more resource-rich, using evidence from their maps.

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Methods used in this brief

• Gallery Walk
• Concept Mapping