This is a guide to help you design a successful experiment for the NASA Explorer Schools Challenge. 

 

Questions

Make a list of the questions you have about the Moon.  Use the web or the library to learn about the Moon.  Are all of your questions answered?  Keep track of the books or websites you use while you are doing your background research.

Now you must ask a question that you can answer by making a measurement.  For ideas, go to the Sample Projects section.  You can do one of these projects, ask your teacher for ideas for a different project, or come up with an idea of your own.

 

Designing Your Experiment

It is important to design an experiment that is not too hard.  Try to keep your experiment simple.  Make it so that someone else could repeat your experiment easily.

For example: If you are going to build a stand to set a camera on to keep it pointed at the Moon, make it as simple as possible.  If you are drawing a wall map of the Moon using the electronic eyepiece on the Meade telescope, mark the spot on the floor where the telescope sits so that it will be the same each time. If you are measuring how high the Moon is above the horizon at the same time each night, ask a family member to help by setting an alarm for that time so you don’t forget.

 

Prediction

Now that you have a question that your experiment will try to answer, what do you predict the answer will be?  Write this prediction down so you can include it in your Final Report.

 

Taking Measurements

You need to keep a log book for your experiment.  What is the quantity you are measuring?  For example, if you are measuring the time the Moon rises each night, the quantity would be Time of Day.  If you are measuring the size of craters you have dawn on a wall map, the quantity could be centimeters.

Units of measure are very important.  Are you using inches or centimeters?   Minutes or seconds? Keep track of your units!   Because the scientific standard is metric, if you make measurements in English units (such as inches), be sure to include an extra column in your table where you have converted to metric units (such as centimeters).

A good format for the log book would look like this (you may not have two quantities):

Date	Time	Quantity A (units!)	Quantity B (units!)	Comments

Under Comments you can write down ideas to help remind you of what was going on.  For example, “My camera got bumped,” or “It was cloudy.”

Try to repeat your measurements at least three times.  It helps you to see if there was something going wrong during one of the measurements.  It also gives you an idea of the “uncertainty” involved in making your measurement.

 

Results

After you make all of your measurements, you must decide what they mean.  You will interpret your results.  For example, if you are measuring the size of craters on a wall map, and you have made your measurements in centimeters, you have to figure out what that means for the actual size of the craters on the Moon, say, in kilometers.

You must also decide how to best show your results to the judges.  Often charts or graphs are easier to explain than tables of numbers.  You might want to include your tables and a chart or a graph in your Final Report.