[meteorite-list] Teacher Brings Pieces Of Moon To Classroom

From: Martin Horejsi <martinh_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:06:13 2004
Message-ID: <B9E82D27.4EDC%martinh_at_isu.edu>

Hi Ron,

Thanks for the post.

Too bad the training was more about security than science.

Here are the final four lines of the story:

> During the moon exploration trips, about 250 pounds of rock was brought
> back, he said.
>
> The small examples serve the same function at the middle school as they do
> at the space center.
>
> "Our purpose is to study them," Williamson said as he explained how the
> Anorthosite sample came to its appearance.
>
> "A meteorite was red hot when it hit the moon, and evidently it rolled," he
> said. "I think it looks like a black strawberry with some kind of icing."


First, I have seen the value of 250 pounds used before. I believe it is a
misconversion of the metric value where one divides by 2.2 rather than
multiplies by 2.2 in order to convert kg to lbs. Then some other math magic
took place that I cannot figure out.

The next sentence is meaningless.

The third and fourth lines must be from some other science fiction article
that wasn't fully deleted from the author's computer.

Just my thoughts as a teacher who is both NASA moon rock and meteorite
certified. Stories like this really damage the NASA teacher outreach efforts
in the eyes of other educators and scientists.

Cheers,

Martin
Received on Fri 01 Nov 2002 03:07:51 PM PST