Your quest is to explore various books, magazines, television programs and the internet to look for information on Earth's moon.  The items you are looking for include physical aspects, scientific aspects, and various other items of interest that will be described later on in the WebQuest.  You will develop a further interest in the subject of this and possibly other aspects of astronomy.

Upon completion of this WebQuest, the student will have a 90% certainty with 5 or more of the following:

• Physical size of the moon.
• Weight of the moon. 
• Orbital period.
• The name for the dark spots you see at night or on a bright day.
• Phases of the moon and their names.
• The theories of the origin of the moon. 
• Determine if there is any evidence of water or ice on the moon. 

To accomplish the task, you will need to access astronomy magazines, astronomy or physics textbooks, and the internet.  Consult a textbook or magazine of your choice or an internet search engine to find information relating to the Earth's moon.

1. Each person will work on this project individually.
2. Find the size of the moon.
3. Find the mass of the moon.
4. Find out the distance between the earth and the moon.
5. Find out how many days there are between full moons.
6. Determine whether or not there is a form of ice on the moon.
7. Find out the name that the dark spots are called on the moon.
8. Find out if the moon has always been referred to as the "moon" or if it has had other names as well.
9. Tell me if the "dark-side" of the moon is really dark?
10. Tell me if there is an atmosphere on the moon.
11. Tell me if there is a magnetic field on the moon.
12. Tell me what the eight official phases of the moon are named.
13. Tell me what is meant by the term "blue moon".
14. Write a short essay on more than one theory of how the moon was formed. This will address at least two theories.  There may be more theories but please limit the number in your paper.

Some useful websites to visit to look for moon information include:

http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/luna.html

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/moons_and_rings.html&edu=mid

http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/Projects/BrowseTheSolarSystem/moon.html

http://stardate.org/resources/ssguide/moon.html

http://hea-www.harvard.edu/ECT/the_book/Chap6/Chapter6.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9612/02/moon.final/

http://www.redmoon.ws/bluemoon/

And finally, for the friend who has everything, or for yourself, you can now purchase 1 acre of moon land from:

http://www.lunarregistry.com/

I have included a conversion scale for your convenience for those who are not comfortable using the metric system.  This will help you understand the exact physical dimensions of the moon that you will look up.  To access this conversion scale website, click on the following link: http://www.ex.ac.uk/cimt/dictunit/dictunit.htm

I would prefer that you take the preprinted form that I give you with the 12 points on it or the answers to as many of them as you are able to find and use a separate piece(s) of paper for your essay. You will have 1 week to complete this project.

Your evaluation of this project will be determined by the following criteria. This will be an individual grade.

http://www.space.com/ -- General and specific information about space.

http://skyandtelescope.com/ -- Magazine that is dedicated to space.

http://www.astronomy.com/home.asp -- Magazine that is dedicated to space.

http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html -- National Aeronautics and Space Administration website.

http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/ -- Cape Canaveral, Florida -- The site where all space shuttle launches occur.

All of the source files for this project are listed above and in the
Process area. I would like to give special thanks to the following
organizations: NASA, Johnson Space Center, Kennedy Space Center,
Astronomy Magazine, Sky & Telescope magazine, Harvard University,
and a special thanks to three people who picqued my interest in
astronomy; David Taylor, Mark Wells and Earl Clark.