LA-M3B - Planetary Surface Interactive Activity

Gray McCarty - 070293180

I had not used the textbook online component previously, so this was my first encounter with it for this
assignment. I found the simulation to be quite enlightening and informing, although I didn’t really expect it to be.
It began by introducing us to the simulation interface itself - we were told what the simulation would achieve by
the end of the three lessons. The objectives seemed straight-forward and easy to follow, and I appreciated the up-
front preview into the lesson.
The next part was very interesting - in the style of “Clue”, the tutorial had us predict the answer to a question that
we did not yet know the theoretical explanation to. This was actually very exciting - I thought for sure I knew what
the answer was when I submitted my prediction (The Earth and Moon are made out of different materials) but I
would soon learn that I shouldn’t be so smug in making this prediction.
Right after submitting my prediction to the question I was brought into Lesson 1. Lesson 1 was focused on
introducing the user to various natural phenomenon that shape the planetary surfaces. It touched on impact
cratering, volcanism, tectonics, and erosion. This introductory lesson describes the processes at a micro-level and
details the makings of the end results on Earth and other planets. It provides flash animations that depict the
processes (albeit at their most simple form) that aid in the understanding of how these planetary events occur. At
the end of the lesson the user is quizzed on what they just read, and asked to identify the various processes by
presenting photos of each on different planets. I scored quite well on this test, having paid close attention to the
previous lesson.

Lesson 2 goes for a more macro approach to the individual processes. It describes more the effect on the planet
and the way in which the phenomenon takes place in our system. It helps answer questions like “why don’t Venus
and Earth have lots of craters like the moon and mercury?” and “why doesn’t Venus have lots of valleys like Earth
has?”. If Lesson 1 was the hard facts and knowledge, Lesson 2 is the application and analysis of that knowledge.
Lesson 2 also goes into more detail about each of the different phenomenon, giving a flash demonstration of each
and its effect on the surface of the planet. In these demonstrations we get a sense of the time required for many of
these effects to be seen on a planetary surface. For example, most of the visible cratering occurs between the
origin of a planet to the first gigayear (billion years) of the planet’s life. I found this to be really enlightening, as I
had always wondered we don’t see so many impactions happen today. Again, at the conclusion of the lesson we
were quizzed on our knowledge of the processes (and this time the time frames they occur in) in order to proceed
to the next lesson.
Lesson 3 was the culminating lesson that really pulled together everything we had learned previously. If Lesson 2
was the analysis and application, Lesson 3 was the synthesis and integration of the knowledge. This lesson focuses
specifically on the macro effects of the processes together over long periods of time. The simulations were
interactive in that they allowed us to simulate various planetary sizes and temperatures in order to see the effects
that might occur on a planet like Venus versus Earth. It was then that I learned that my original prediction was in
fact incorrect. At first I was disappointed, but in a somewhat cliche way I said to myself “well, that’s what learning is
all about anyways!” and changed my answer to the question, which in the end was “The surfaces of the moon and
the Earth differ because the Earth is much bigger than the Moon”. This answers the question of why we can see the
impacts so clearly on the moon but not on Earth, and why the Moon doesn’t have volcanic activity, many
mountain ranges, and valleys.
In the end I was actually pleasantly surprised by the value-add of this interactive activity. Typically I don’t enjoy
these online textbook companion activities, but this one exceeded my expectations.