HIDDEN VALLEY LAKE, Calif. – Students in Kathy Scavone's fourth grade class became docents of the moon when they gave “moon tours” to hundreds of students at Coyote Valley Elementary School last week.
Scavone took a class at NASA Ames Research Center to allow her to borrow and interpret our country's national treasures, the lunar samples, or moon rocks, to students.
The “moon stations” included a newspaper dated July 20, 1969 with the bold headlines, “Men on the Moon!”
Students learned what daring events unfolded back then, with thousands of people working together in the space program to make this extraordinary feat occur, and that millions of people around the world watched in wonder as the moon landing story unfolded, and astronaut Neil Armstrong said, “That's one small step for man, and one giant leap for mankind.”
Students' tours included posters with information on the Apollo missions, moon facts, moon phases, moon rocks facts, then viewed the actual lunar samples.
The lunar samples, small rocks and soils obtained from the over 800 pounds of rocks brought back to Earth from some of the six manned moon missions which spanned the years 1969 to 1973 were encased in a clear, plastic disc so that they would not change, or oxidize.
The rocks and soils were viewed on the large Smart Board via a new computer-microscope. The six samples included mare soil, the fragments of which were produced by meteorites hitting basalts.
The mare soil held grains of the minerals feldspar and pyroxene and were collected by the Apollo 17 mission, the last mission by humans to the moon. Breccia was viewed, which was collected by the Apollo 15 astronauts near Hadley Rille, a canyon-like depression on the moon.
Breccias are made of fragments of other rocks that were smashed by meteorite bombardment on the moon.
They viewed orange soil, which is a mixture of dark red-orange and black spheres returned by Apollo 17 astronauts when they used shovels to collect this unique soil at the moon's Mare Serenitatis.
Orange soil originated over 3.5 billion years ago from volcanic lava sprays. When the debris was in flight, it cooled to form the tiny glass spheres.
Anorthosite is a breathtakingly beautiful white rock comprised mainly of feldspar crystals. This sample was retrieved from the moon's Descartes region in the light-colored highlands of the center of the moon by Apollo 16 astronauts.
Anorthosite's crystals were once pale gray, but when meteorites bombarded the moon and broke the crust into fragments, the feldspar was 'shocked' and shattered, turning the crystals white.
They viewed Highland Soil which was collected by the Apollo 16 astronauts near the moon's center, on highlands between dark “mare” areas.
This soil is comprised of particles of rocks, mineral grains and glass melted during the meteorite impacts on the moon's surface long ago. The glasses included in Highland Soil are many colors, such as brown, pale green, gray and black.
The other lunar sample in the disc they viewed was basalt. Basalt formed when lava spilled onto the moon's surface and cooled, then crystallized. The grains in the basalt were pyroxene, feldspar, olivine and iron titanium oxide. The sample was collected in August 1971 by the Apollo 15 astronauts at the east edge of Mare Imbrium, the large circular area on the moon's upper left surface.
Some of the other things student's shared through their studies of moon rocks: Students learned that 12 men walked on the moon from 1969 to 1973, and there were six manned landings.
All moon rocks are igneous. Moon rocks are similar to Earth rocks, but Moon rocks contain no water and Earth rocks do. It is easy for scientists to tell them apart under a microscope and by analyzing their chemistry.
The moon, like Earth, has a crust, mantle, outer core, inner core and moonquakes. The poles of the moon contain metric tons of water ice.
The “man in the moon” we see on the moon's surface is the large Imbrium, formed by meteorites. The dark areas we see are called maria, and are layered with basalt lava.
The astronauts left a sign on the moon that says, “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.”
Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is an educator, potter, writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.” She also writes for NASA and JPL as one of their “Solar System Ambassadors.” She was selected “Lake County Teacher of the Year, 1998-99” by the Lake County Office of Education, and chosen as one of 10 state finalists the same year by the California Department of Education.