By Stacy Palen

How delightful! The phases of the Moon were in the news in late March, giving all of us an opportunity to teach students about the practical applications of astronomy in the modern world. You will likely recall the giant container ship that was stuck in the Suez Canal for almost a week, disrupting supply chains around the world. The arrival of spring tide helped float the ship off the bank where it was wedged, setting it free.

CNN reported about this news, although there are other outlets as well. 

I have included some snippets about this news with some questions on my final exam, asking students to sketch the relative positions of the Earth, Moon, and Sun during spring tide, and to make a sketch that demonstrates why so-called “supermoons” result in extra-high spring tides. Sketches like these are very quick to grade, so I like to use them during any times of the semester when I have a large grading load.

I can also code these questions as addressing the “Science and Society” general-education learning outcome, so that the crowd that does our general-education assessment will be able to check the box on their report.

I have in mind that I could build an entire assignment around this event, for future semesters, but I haven’t done it yet. Like you, I am just trying to put one foot in front of the other to get to the end of this semester!