Transcript of an Opening Conversation

Navigation Links

Ongoing Conversations About the Moon

Opening Conversation about the Moon

If we see the moon during the day or evening, we send an email message to all of the students through our electronic bulletin board system to remind them to look. For example, “Hi Everyone! It’s 9 p.m., Wednesday evening - I just saw the moon on my way home tonight! Please have a look if you see this message and the sky stays clear this evening!”

Before class, we engage individuals in brief conversations about their observations of the moon as they enter the classroom and are getting settled at their tables. “Were you able to see the moon? What did you see?” This encourages students to share their observations with their tablemates and provides positive reinforcement for the act of looking for the moon outside of class. However, usually most students confess to having forgotten about looking for the moon, especially during the first weeks of observation.

Typically one or two have seen the moon and are able to provide a few observations. As we identify students who have moon observations, we ask them to record their observations on the wall calendar under the appropriate dates. Initially we ask only for a sketch of the shapes of the moon they have seen and the times of observation.

We open class with a conversation about the moon so that everyone hears about what has been seen and begins thinking about those observations as well as about making predictions for what might be seen next.

Opening the Conversation:

Instructor: Okay, so we had some moon watchers last night, and we can record. Who would like to record? Did you happen to see the moon, Anne?
Anne: No, I actually didn't. We were doing house tours and stuff, and by the time I got the email, it was too late.
Instructor: I happened to go home at about nine, and I thought, oh look, it's amazing! It's clear! They can see it! Unfortunately, well, Abby can you tell them what you saw?
Abby: Yeah, I got the email so I went outside. I could see a little bit of the moon. There were a couple clouds around it, but I could see it shining through them. Wasn't dark clouds, so, it was pretty.

Asking for Details:

Instructor: Was it a teeny sliver of a moon, or was it a half moon? Abby: It was pretty close. Instructor: Nancy, what did you see? Nancy: I saw it with, there weren't any clouds around it. It was a perfect clearing. It was like a half, honestly, more than a half because it was big. But, it wasn't totally full.

Asking for a Prediction:

Instructor: Okay, so it was more than half, but not quite full. What direction is it going to change? Do you think if you see it tonight or tomorrow night, will it be bigger and more lit, or less and less lit?

Nancy: I don't know, I was kind of wondering that.

Instructor: That's a question to ask. Which way is it going? Is it going to stay the same or is it going to change? Do you have a sense?

Abby: I think it's going to be fuller because last weekend I went down to California and I saw the moon down there because it was clear. It was a little sliver.

Responding to an Unexpected Remark:

Instructor: Fabulous! We didn't ask for your observations. We thought it wasn't visible (because it rained all weekend here). Now we have, I just asked Lindsey to erase (the wall calendar on which to record) last week's visions. Do you remember what day that was?

Abby: It was, Saturday.

Instructor: Saturday of last week?

Abby: The first.

Instructor: Okay, it would be the first. We will let you put that observation up there where it says October 2011. If you would add that, that would be great! It didn't occur to me that some of you might have been somewhere else.

Welcoming an Unexpected Elaboration:

Kayla: So, you guys couldn't see the moon at all?

Instructor: I didn't see it, did you see it?

Kayla: I went to the coast.

Instructor: And you saw it there?

Kayla: Mhm.

Instructor: Fabulous! Did you make a picture in your sky journal?

Kayla: Mhm. For every night.

Instructor: Do you have it with you? What did you see? Tell us what you saw.

Kayla: I think it was waxing.

Instructor: It's waxing? What do you mean by waxing?

Kayla: It's getting bigger.

Instructor: All right, so, do you have that with you? Fabulous! Tell us the rendition of what you saw. It looks like you've got several.

Kayla: So, about each night, hopefully around 8 or 7 o'clock, I would look for the moon. And, for the most part, it was just a few clouds, except for one night. It started out as a little sliver, and each night it got just a fraction thicker. I didn't really notice it moving anywhere. Like, I couldn't see if it was ending up in a different spot every night. I tried my best to stay in the same spot.

Asking for the Reasoning Behind a Series of Observations:

Instructor: So, why were you looking at the same time?

Kayla: Since the different rotations of the moon…doesn't it end up moving every night?

Instructor: So you have a belief that the moon does come up like the sun does. And we did notice that the sun seems to move, appears to move, because our shadows changed on Thursday. So you are having the assumption that the moon is going to move in a similar way. And you went out every night at 8 o'clock, is that when it was?

Kayla: Yeah, 7:30 or 8.

Instructor: 7:30 or 8 to kind of see where it was. And what was your conclusion?

Accepting in a Neutral Manner an Unexpected Observation:

Kayla: I couldn't tell a difference.

Instructor: You couldn't tell a difference, okay. All right, so that would have been last weekend of Saturday and Sunday?

Kayla: The 29th through the 2nd is when I was…

Instructor: I just asked Lindsey to erase that part of the row of last week because we had no observations. (To Lindsay) I'm going to ask you to undo what you just did, and we'll get the 5th down, and then we will get Kayla's observations from Thursday through Saturday. We are so privileged to have these. I was totally frustrated that we didn't get to see the moon at all. Great!