Phases of the Moon

1.In your model, what represents the Earths? The sun? The moon?
A big foam ball represented Earth, a smaller one the moon and the sun was a little flashlight.

2. Refer back to your eight circles. How much lighted part of the ball did you see when facing the lamp?
If you are referring to the moon phases from Earth you can’t see anything because the sun is behind it so it cant light it up, but on the opposite side you can see the whole moon.

3.Label your drawings with the names of the phases of the moon. Which drawing represents a full moon? A new moon? Which represents the waxing crescent? The waning crescent?
Number one represents a new moon since you can’t see anything because the sun is behind the moon. The fool moon is number five were you can see the whole moon since the sun is in front of the moon. The waxing crescent is number two and the waning crescent represents number eight.

4. How much lighted part of the ball did you see after each turn?
If you look at the phases of the moon from space you would always see only one side of the moon. But when you look at it from Earth you can see only one side of the moon and sometimes it is fully dark (new moon) or all bright (new moon) and sometimes you could see half of it (first and last/third quarter) and at last from some point you could see one third of it (waxing, waning crescent, waxing and waning gibbous).

5. Wether you could  see it or not, how much of the ball’s surface was always lit by the lamp Was the darkness of the new moon caused by an eclipse? Explain your answer.
Always half of the moon was lightened but we couldn’t see it always (depending on the angle you see it from, and where the moon is). The lightened part of the moon was facing the sun so we couldn’t see it so the new moon is not caused by an eclipse.

6. Write a brief analysis of this lab. How well did making a model help you understand the phases of the moon? What are some disadvantages of using models? What is another way to make a model to represent various phases of the moon?
Creating a lab was really important for me because I understood the phases of the moon, got to have a visual model different angles and how it looks from the front and the back but also see it from the space view and earth view. A disadvantage of making a model is that it is not really accurate but it helped me understand. Another way to do it is have everything at the right place and at the right angle so that is would be accurate, just like the globe.