image by √oхέƒx™

A few months ago I started to observe the moon every night as part of an assignment for a science education class. The instructions were to watch the moon daily, at the same time, from the same location for about 5 weeks and record all observations in a journal. This seemed straightforward enough, fine, let’s see how it goes. I decided to set my cell phone alarm to 11:30 p.m., because I knew I would forget.

At first, it was hard to pull myself away from my computer or get home a little earlier just to observe the moon. I wanted to stay inside, writing emails or reading. It was too cold—why bother watching it? I can just look up the phase online, I thought.

I could look up every last bit of minutiae about the moon online, but it’s no substitute for the actual act of going outside and watching. I did not know this back in February. So, I recorded data on the phase, elevation from horizon, size, color, shape, visibility, weather, and star visibility. I found my exact location in latitude and longitude. Did you know that people in the southern hemisphere see the phases of the moon in the opposite order that we northerners do? They see it waxing from the left and waning on the right, whereas we see the moon grow and shrink just the opposite way. This is all new information to me, a person with virtually no science background embarking on a new career to be a science teacher, humbled by how much there is to learn and surprised that I’ve been walking this planet for 35 years and didn’t know these things.

La Luna, the moon, is our closest neighbor in space.  It is a mere 240,000 miles away. The sun in comparison is 93 million miles away. The moon rises in our east and sets in our west just as the sun does. This is because, like almost all planets in our solar system (except for Venus and Uranus), they rotate around the sun counterclockwise. The moon’s distance from us varies during the month because its orbit is elliptical. Apogee is the name given when the moon is its furthest away from earth, and perigee is the name of the moon’s location when it is closest to us, actually 7% closer than its average distance. The dark spots that we see on the moon are large plains called flatlands. They are also termed lunar maria, because early astronomers thought they were bodies of water—mare in Latin, plural, maria.  These plains are the result of ancient volcanic eruptions that occurred between three and three and a half billion years ago. 

After the five weeks, I compiled my data. I was missing most of the drawings, and forgot to find out the weather or didn’t record the elevation or missed a few days in a row. I thought I was on top of all this, what happened? My generous professor allows us to redo our assignments over to achieve mastery, as a model for us to keep with our own students. Ideally, this policy fosters development and responsibility. Ok, so this time, I carefully recorded everything in a notebook and used binoculars most of the time, and almost always jumped up at 11:30 no matter what I was doing to watch la Luna.

My professor made a point of asking us what our plans are for dealing with the complaints that arise when we assign moon watching. Your students will probably say it’s too hard or they don’t have time, or who cares? How will we help them? New York City students have busy parents, or one parent, or a guardian, and so many responsibilities. How will you guys, as their teachers, impress upon them that yes, moon watching is as important as everything else, at least for a month. How patient will we be with their process? How supportive?  I came to realize that developing patience for myself, practicing this new subject, was a start. How will I impress upon my students that observing the moon is worthwhile? 

I saw that as I developed a commitment to moon-watching, I learned about many other things besides the wax and wane of the moon. In showing up for the moon I confronted things in myself like impatience, feelings of never being good enough, resistance to new things, and organization. Most importantly I started to see what development and confidence actually are. I saw myself develop from being uncertain and half-hearted about moon-watching to being full of awe and wonder about this beautiful admirer out in space that glows brilliant one a month.

On the night of April 9th, I went outside, expectant of a full moon. I took down the general characteristics and then started to look through my binoculars. It was so wild to see the flatlands and the mountain chains; those bright white dots and lines. I realized that as I sat there, I was doing science. Hey, this is what scientists do; they observe closely what is going on. I wasn’t inside doing something habitual like cooking, cleaning, or depending on information online—I was finding out for myself. I noticed resistance coming on strong because I haven’t developed much confidence in being myself, in being natural, so new tasks seem impossible because I only see things I don’t know, and so much to do, rather than a new area to discover and bring myself into.

As I sketched the moon that night, all kinds of nagging voices emerged, those whining children saying,  “You should be somewhere else,  go inside, it’s cold, your sketch isn’t good enough, hurry up, it’s taking too long, what’s the point?” I decided not to listen and continued sketching.  I found out I could draw all those flatlands that I saw through my binoculars by associating them with a shape. So the upper right looked like a horse and bit by bit I created a fairly accurate sketch.

I started thinking that I really like being out here, in the crisp cold, sketching the moon. The way to know what’s important in a person’s life is by asking them what they do with their time. How do I know what’s important in my life, I thought? By measuring the time I spend doing the things I do, I answered. Cooking as a career used to be very important to me. Making things perfect according to some old, rigid, familial, God knows what idea, used to be important to me. They aren’t anymore. Moon watching is important, and that’s refreshing. How many women or girls do this?  How many mothers take their daughters outside at night and watch the moon?

I am connecting this with being a woman, because although my parents considered education very important, as a child, I didn’t spend my weekends learning how to use a compass, or make up mini-science projects, watch the moon or look through a telescope. I spent my time cooking with my mother—a great thing to do, for sure, but not something that will advance women’s typical conversations or the role of women in the sciences. On a grander scale, what are parents teaching their children? How do parents spend family time together? 

If we as a culture want to advance technologically, and impress on our youth that care and responsibility for the natural world is in everyone’s best interest, then all our students, especially the girls, need to be exposed to hands-on science activities and experiments from a young age.  Fortunately, science teaching has been moving in this direction for a while now and it’s exciting to learn about approaches such as project based learning and expeditionary learning.

My experience with watching the moon is showing me the potential of this kind of learning. When we go outside the lines we’ve drawn in our lives—our habits, expectations, and opinions—to really look closely at the world around us, great things can emerge: responsibility, care, growth, confidence, and optimism. It starts with a willingness to try something new and a commitment to seeing it through. How will I as a teacher support my students in going beyond what they think they know about what is important? How will I continue to challenge myself to do the same thing? These are important questions for me as an educator—and for all of us—to engage with as we push into new ways of living in this magnificent world.