Tonight 56 years ago, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon.
Neil Armstrong famously declared, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Once upon a time, I had a hard time remembering who stepped on the moon first: Armstrong or Aldrin. The Internet helped me with this joke:
“I’m Buzz Aldrin, the second person to walk on the moon. Neil before me.”
I hope you’ll forgive the sentence fragment.
This 45-minute video on the Apollo missions helped deepen our knowledge of space travel.
In an effort to develop critical thinking skills and to develop awareness of the need to establish source credibility, I used these videos as a springboard to talk with my child about persistent conspiracy theories that the moon landing was staged. “Mythbusters” apparently had a great show on this topic years ago; you can view a few segments on YouTube. (Here is a link to one we watched because Discovery UK does not allow embeds of the video on other web sites.) We also found a meticulous and comprehensive article from BBC Science Focus Magazine fact checking those conspiracy theories. (Here is the link.)
I decided to tie in some music. I had my older child listen to the story told in David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” which was rushed to release in early July 1969 to capitalize on the Apollo 11 moon landing.
If my child had been a little older, I would have shown her the video of what I believe is the conclusion of Major Tom’s story in Bowie’s final video, “Blackstar.” But alas she is still fairly young, and I didn’t want to disturb her, so I did not show her this video. I included it here for older students.
I did show my child a cover of “Space Oddity,” the first music video filmed in space by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield.
Amazing stuff!
Never stop learning,
Erin
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