Thursday the 3rd of December, 2009, Ms Breton’s 3rd grade classes at École FACE School took a trip to the moon, piloted by MoL Team Moon Science, Joanna Mansour (M.Sc. student, Sociology, U Montréal) and Dr. Tarek Kassem (Post-Doctoral Fellow, Chemistry, U Montréal).   Aided by a series of videos (see URLs below), Tarek and Joanna engaged the students in an interactive discussion featuring the many faces of the moon, the theory of its creation, Galileo, Neil Armstrong and of course moon composition, which although it is not made of cheese, like cheese, is rich in calcium.   On re-entry to Earth, Tarek mentioned the importance of friction, the force resisting the motion of solid surfaces, and how the friction of the earth’s atmosphere slows down the space ship creating heat.  The students were then asked to feel the heat created by the friction of rubbing their hands together.  They examined fluid friction by observing the speed of beads dropped into solutions of different viscosity (oil and water).  Sliding a block along books with different surfaces, the students recognized that rough surfaces, which have a higher coefficient of friction, slowed the motion of the block better than smooth surfaces.  Bringing concepts about the moon and friction together, Joanna taught the students how to moon walk like Michael Jackson.  The moon walk was performed with and without shoes to examine which surfaces caused the least friction and best allowed the dancer to glide appearing to float without friction as if on the moon. Exploring friction by rubbing their hands together, clicking their fingers together and moon walking, the students enjoyed being choreographed to dance in ways that were both fun and educational.  After one more moon dance with MoL, the students thanked team moon science for a fantabulous lunar experience.

For a video on the phases of la Lune see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9Qe6Nh8JJw&feature=related

For a video on the distance to travel to go to the moon and the composition of the moon, see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-rvlvuR2zw&feature=related

For a video on les éclipses, see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kt4s4PH-GA&feature=related