Paper Plate Education
"Serving the Universe on a Paper Plate"

Activity: Paper Moons III

The following text was written as part of a series of in-planetarium lesson plans. Used with permission.

5. MOON PHASES. Four yellow or white paper plates, scissors, marker: Show the moon as a waxing crescent in the evening sky with enough light to see plates, markers, and scissors. "Mark a plate at a point on the rim. Make another point opposite that. With the two marks as end places, cut out a paper plate to look like the shape of the moon that you see. Save the piece you cut off. Notice the dark mark. Color your moon shape to look like the moon you see. You have made a model of the waxing crescent moon. "Show each of seven other main phases. Participants mark opposite places and cut a plate in half for first quarter. They find that the scrap piece from the waxing crescent can be used for the waxing gibbous. An entire plate is like the full moon. The waning gibbous must be cut from the fourth, marked plate. The last quarter is the scrap from the cut of first quarter. And the waning crescent is the scrap from the cut of waning gibbous. Participants color each moon phase as it looks. Give them a handout of phase names with sketches of the shapes. "Take your shapes home and put the right label on each shape." With a model of the moon, earth and sun, show the reasons for having moon phases.

Contributed by Jeanne Bishop.

GLPA Proceedings, 1993, p. 36.

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