Monday, September 7, 2015

Earth's Circumference + Phases of the Moon

Leaning Goal 1.2- I understand where I am situated (physically) in the universe.

This past week, we learned about the different phases of the moon and how to measure the circumference of the earth. Beginning with the moon, I didn't find it too difficult to remember the stages: new moon, waxing crescent, 1st quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, 3rd quarter, and waning crescent. The only difficulty I had was differentiating waxing and waning. Later in the week, we measured the circumference of the earth using Nasif's model, which helped show the work of Eratosthenes regarding the curvature of the earth. We began by measuring the height and width of the sticks on the model, and using those numbers to determine the necessary angle (14 degrees). We then measured the distance between Alexandria and Syene on the model (30 cm) and set up a proportion to determine the earth's circumference based on the model. Then, we inserted the actual distance (843.6 km) in place of the 30 cm to determine the actual circumference of the earth. Our answer of 22, 000 km was about half off the actual circumference; this was because our angle of 14 degrees was incorrect due to inaccurate measurements of the height and width of the sticks. Similarly to last week, I noted the importance of accurate measurements.





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