Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

My kindergartener is interested in how a lunar eclipse occurs and wants to use this for her science fair project. Since this would be more demonstration of a phenomenon than an experiment, I'm not sure this is the right subject to use. Her interest in science is what I want to foster here so if this is a subject she's curious about I want try and make it work. Do you have any suggestions for an experiment that work for this subject? The only thing I came up with was to make models and show her how the earth cast it's shadow ( a demonstration)

Thank you!!!

Dear Mom,

Sounds like a demo would be best. You can make it fun by placing continents and countires on your Earth. Then you can find out where the eclipse is seen and where it is not seen before the night ends.

Have fun!

OK

Hi,

Check with your child's teacher to make sure, but I think at the kindergarten level a working model of the sun/earth/moon that could demonstrate a lunar eclipse would be more than adequate for a science fair--especially since she is interested in the topic! Another possibility would be for her to look at lists of past or predicted eclipses such as this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_21 ... r_eclipses and ask her if she sees any patterns and/or could predict approximately when future eclipses will occur. The only problem with this is that the patterns may be too complicated for a kindergartener to pick out and you wouldn't want her to get discouraged because any simple hypothesis she comes up with won't be very accurate; if you do go this route I suggest only looking at total eclipses or having her look at a type of eclipse where you are able to pick out a pattern yourself.

You might also find this website to be particularly helpful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_eclipse.

Hope this helps!

Those are great suggestions. Thank you for the help!

My 6 years old kid, who is studying in Phoenix kindergarten, is so excited to know how trains run. Please suggest how to demonstrate functional ideas of train's working. Thanks in advance.