To accompany feature “Learning from what Apollo astronauts left on the moon”

SCIENCE

Before Reading: 

1.  Why is the first moon landing important?

2.  What do you know about the moon? What do you hope to learn from this article?

During Reading:

1.  Why did astronauts leave so many things on the moon?

2.  How many experiments did Apollo astronauts set up on the moon?

3. Why are scientists today interested in studying data from the Apollo moon experiments? What are some of the scientific questions that they are trying to answer?

4.  What decades-old mystery did Seiichi Nagihara solve by studying the moon’s temperature data?

5.   Where did Nagihara have to go to track down “missing” Apollo data?

6.   Physicist Tom Murphy is using mirrors to answer a question much bigger than the moon. What’s it called and what does it hope to explain?

7.   What are the mirrors that were set up on the moon used to measure? How do they work?

8.   What kind of “movements” does Renee Weber study?

9.   How could Weber’s research guide future moon missions?

10.  Why does Philip Metzger consider astronaut trash “priceless”?

After Reading:

1.  If you were to visit the moon, what items would you take with you? What would you leave behind?

2.  If you could set up an experiment on the moon, what would it be and why?