Natural Connections

Emily Stone

Natural Connections is a weekly newspaper column created by Emily Stone, the Naturalist/Education Director at the Cable Natural History Museum in Cable, Wisconsin. In each episode, Emily reads her fun and informative weekly column about Northwoods Nature.

  1. JAN 22

    How Do We Know the Moon

    "'I know the moon,' said the fox"  My colleague read this title line aloud from a children's book recently, as part of a staff training. At first, I was just as enchanted with the story as she was. The fox goes on to describe how the Moon is like a rabbit that he can chase across the night.  The moth disagrees with the fox, though, as does the owl, the mouse, and the bullfrog. The animals start bickering about who's right. They decide to visit A Man of Science, and each Being hopes that he will confirm their perspective. But the Man of Science declares that the Moon is made of sand, and nothing more. I sensed that the author was trying to make some point about how the facts and figures of science are out to squash wonder in the world. How horrible that would be! I realized that the author had constructed a strawman argument by setting up a simplistic imagined opponent that's easy to knock down. Giving children an incorrect view of science and scientists isn't going to help them navigate our changing world. It isn't going to help them to know the Moon.    Here's a few fun links to info about the Moon:    https://www.amazon.com/I-Know-Moon-Stephen-Anderson/dp/039923425X https://radiolab.org/podcast/the-moon-itself/transcript https://cablemuseumnaturalconnections.blogspot.com/2021/06/whip-poor-will.html https://cablemuseumnaturalconnections.blogspot.com/2018/09/stranger-than-we-can-imagine.html https://www.sciencealert.com/our-moon-is-curiously-lopsided-and-a-massive-impact-could-be-to-blame https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/meteorites/meteorite-impacts/on-the-moon https://science.nasa.gov/moon/tidal-locking/ https://science.nasa.gov/moon/weather-on-the-moon/ https://science.nasa.gov/moon/formation/ https://science.nasa.gov/moon/composition/ https://www.universetoday.com/articles/moons-insides-still-hot-hot-hot-after-billions-of-years-of-formation-study

    6 min

Ratings & Reviews

5
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5 Ratings

About

Natural Connections is a weekly newspaper column created by Emily Stone, the Naturalist/Education Director at the Cable Natural History Museum in Cable, Wisconsin. In each episode, Emily reads her fun and informative weekly column about Northwoods Nature.

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