Middle School Science Lessons

This is a great hands on activity to get students thinking about the size of the Earth compared to the Moon, distance to the moon, and the rotation vs. revolution of the Moon around Earth. (updated 5/6/25)

In this lesson there are 4 mini-activities that cover:

• Comparing the size of the Moon to the size of Earth.
• How far away is the Moon?
• How many Moons could fit inside the Earth?
• How does the Moon rotate and revolve around the Earth?

Materials:

• Student Handouts – Google doc with Answer Key, make a copy to edit
• Circle templates  to represent the Moon and the Earth. Updated – I added colored circles and avoided using shades of blue, gray, and yellow since those are often associated with the Earth, Moon, and Sun. (Google slides)
  • Templates are laminated & cut out prior to activity.
  • Place one set into in a large zip-top bag
  • One set per group
• Rulers & calculators
• Pennies – 50 per group, then later 1 per student
• Quarters – 1 per student
• Styrofoam ball with a small flag, or something small, pinned to it

Details for the lesson are in the handout. As the students were working, I visited each group to check on their progress and hear their ideas. I held off on revealing the real answers to the first 3 parts until everyone was done with all of the activities and after we discussed our ideas and reasons for the choices they made as a class.

For the Rotation vs. Revolution, I had them try out their own ideas on how to make the penny rotate and revolve around the quarter before I demonstrated it with a styrofoam moon.