• The MOON Project electronically links together approximately a dozen students, one of whom, the group leader, is a collegiate pre-service teacher and the rest are elementary or middle schoolers in states such as Massachusetts, Texas, Alaska, California, Indiana, Arizona and New Mexico (on the Navajo Reservation) in the United States and from other countries such as Australia, England, Finland, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Ukraine.

• Each semester several hundred children in grades 4-8 and pre-service teachers participate in these discussion groups.  Teachers are always welcome to have a small handful or all of their students join the MOON Project by contacting the project director (see below).
  

• The children observe the Moon for 16 weeks and for the last nine of those 16 weeks they write short essays of about 200 words each about lunar observations they've made, patterns they found when comparing the observations made by children around the world, and explanations for those patterns. They post their writing to the Internet for feedback from a pre-service teacher; and their polished essays are posted to another spot on the Internet for all children in their group to read. The MOON Project is about science, but students also practice their writing skills.

• The children's identity remains anonymous and they are further protected by a strong firewall. All teachers have access to all of their children's writing, so they can see what their students write and what is written to them.

• The MOON Project started in 2001 at Ball State University with Ohio State University becoming a partner soon thereafter.  In 2004 Texas Tech University and Indiana University - Purdue University at Columbus joined the partnership; and in 2005 the MOON Project initiative became international with the addition of Australian Catholic University and Shiga University in Japan, along with Oklahoma State University in the United States. Clemson University joined in 2006.

• Under the leadership of Texas Tech, these univesities have informally joined together in the
  I. V. STEM Classroom initiative to develop methods for students to work together internationally, via the Internet, in exemplary science, math and technology instruction.
  

• The MOON Project was honored with the Ohaus Award for Innovations in Science Teaching in 2003 by the National Science Teachers Association.

• There is no charge to students, teachers or students for their involvement in the MOON Project.

• More information can be found in "Meeting the MOON from a Global Perspective" in the May 2003 issue of Science Scope (vol. 28, #6, pages 24-28) and in “The MOON Project" in the March 2006 issue of Science and Children (vol. 43, #6, pages 52-55). NSTA members can access these articles from nsta.org

• For more information or for teachers to involve their students in the MOON Project, contact the MOON Project Director, Dr. Walter S. Smith, at: walter.smith@ttu.edu

The MOON Project has been funded by grants from the Ball State University Diversity Associates Project and NASA.
Last modified 22 December 2006.