What is the Moon Project?

Welcome to the MOON Project.  We invite you and your students in grades 4-8 to join dozens of teachers and hundreds of students in this collaborative, global, science inquiry.  It’s free by emailing This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

MOON Project students from around the world learn how the Moon works from both their own local point of view and also a global perspective.

Click here for more detail on how the MOON Project works.

The MOON Project is flexible.  Each teacher can adjust their participation to their students’ and school’s needs. Free handbooks guide teachers and students through the project.  Click Teacher Handbook or Student Handbook to learn in detail how the project works.

Teachers may choose to have their students participate from January to April or from late August to November. Some teachers have all of their students participate.  Other teachers choose to have only their science club or gifted students or another student group be involved.

Participation in the MOON Project can emphasize curricular goals in one or more of the following areas:
•    Lunar phases.
•    Inquiry skills or dispositions.
•    Nature of science.

Students learn to observe nature firsthand and are engaged in global collaboration. The point is that different teachers may choose to emphasize different facets of the MOON Project according to their needs. Teachers may choose to have their students take a multiple-choice test to learn about their class’s improvement in lunar knowledge.  Click CMPA-R to learn more about this 30 item, computer-based test.

Students’ identities are never revealed.  Emails are not exchanged.  The web site is strongly protected, so the participants are as safe as possible.

To join the MOON Project, email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it at Texas Tech University.

History of the Moon Project

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.
 
The MOON Project moved to Texas Tech University in 2006; and The University of North Dakota, the C.W. Post campus of Long Island University, St. Gregory’s University, Northwestern Oklahoma State University, and Midwestern State University joined in 2007.  Georgia Southern University and the University of Western Australia joined in 2008 and Transworld Institute of Technology (Taiwan) joined in 2009.
 
Under the leadership of Texas Tech, these universities 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.