This company Replogle makes novelty moon globes for an amazingly looooow price.  You can get one here.

I was given one as a gift and realized that there was a pretty good coordinate system printed on it, along with the locations of the Apollo mission and lots of visible landmarks.

This screamed “teaching tool” to me so I expanded on the coordinate system and made a sort of landmark treasure hunt activity where students would use coordinates to find landmarks or find landmarks and give the coordinates.  They would also develop a scale and convert into miles thereby allowing them to calculate distances and diameters of objects using string on a spherical object.  Yes, I am including the lesson in this, you’re welcome!

Download the activity doc here: Using-the-Moon-Globe

Fusion is another tough topic to teach using hands on materials.  There are plenty of simulations and diagrams.  I wasn’t quite sure how to really approach a standard method of teaching fusion.  The students have a pretty good idea of what is happening but I wanted to reinforce a few concepts using something hands on:

• like charges repel (proton to proton interactions)
• overcoming electrostatic repulsion (nuclear collisions)
• what’s inside the nucleus
• nucleosynthesis of higher elements up to iron
• atomic mass, momentum and atomic number

I decided to have them make fusion games based on some of these concepts.  The results have always turned out pretty well.  Student creativity builds ownership of the learning and gaming is a fun way to deliver some much needed enrichment.