Materials Needed:
- piece of paper
- a pencil and eraser
- something to trace a small circle, like a small bowl, a glass or jar lid
- something hard to write on
Step 1: Prepare your drawing sheet.
Gather your supplies and trace a circle on your paper. You can draw several circles in case you want to draw what you see several times.
Step 2: Go outside and look for the Moon.
When the sun has gone down, look for the Moon in the sky. You can look online or on a weather app to find out what time the Moon rises where you live.
Step 3: What can you see with your eyes? What do you notice? Draw what you see!
Step 4: Study your drawing—what can you discover?
The first thing you might've noticed on the Moon are the dark and light patches. Those colors show you the different types of rock that tell the story of what happened to the Moon.
The dark patches are called maria, which means “seas,” because people thought they looked like oceans. They don’t actually contain liquid water. They are areas that flooded with lava after big space rocks crashed into the Moon’s crust billions of years ago. They are dark because of the type of rock that is present.
The lighter places are called highlands. They are taller areas on the Moon's surface that are a lot like mountains on Earth.
Tip: Go outside on different nights of the month and draw how the Moon changes throughout the month!