Escape Moon

Escape Moon

Elisa Maria Alessi¹, Elena Martellato², and Pamela Cambianica²

Elisa Maria Alessi et al. Elisa Maria Alessi¹, Elena Martellato², and Pamela Cambianica²

• ¹Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Matematica Applicata e Tecnologie Informatiche "E. Magenes", Italy (elisamaria.alessi@cnr.it)
• ²Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Astronomical Observatory of Padova

• ¹Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Matematica Applicata e Tecnologie Informatiche "E. Magenes", Italy (elisamaria.alessi@cnr.it)
• ²Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Astronomical Observatory of Padova

ESCAPE MOON is an educational activity conceived to explain the dynamics of meteor streams to primary school kids. The game consists of cards with questions that encourage the participants to learn about the natural bodies in the Solar System, their distances from the Sun, their motion, and in particular the Earth-Moon system. 

The activity was developed as part of the outreach efforts related to the ESA LUMIO (LUnar Meteoroid Impacts Observer) mission, a CubeSat ESA mission, led by Politecnico di Milano and supported mainly by the Italian Space Agency (ASI). LUMIO aims at characterizing meteor showers on the Moon’s farside in a range of impact kinetic energy not fully measured by previous analyses [1][2].

The main character of the game is Mazem, who lives on the Moon and receives a message warning him about a potential danger. ESCAPE MOON includes ten cards containing questions to be solved, each of them potentially triggering an interactive discussion with the kids. Examples of question are: Which natural bodies can approach the Moon? What is the main difference between a meteor shower on the Earth and one on the Moon? How does the surface of the Moon look like? What can monitor the meteor showers?. In Figures 1 to 4, some cards (in Italian) to be solved are shown.  

Figure 1. First ESCAPE MOON card. Question: Mazem lives on the Moon and sees a star and a planet, and he wonders whether there are other objects in space. Solution: By reconstructing a rhyme, the kids learn that in the Solar System there are also other planets and small bodies, like satellites, asteroids, comets, and dwarf planets.

Figure 2. Second ESCAPE MOON card. Question: Why can these objects represent a danger for Mazem? How do these objects move? Solution: the kids need to find the intruders in the picture, that are the Moon, Europe, and Enceladus, which differ from the others because they orbit around a planet instead the Sun.

Figure 3. Sixth ESCAPE MOON card. Question: Comets are dirty snowballs, loosing material, and become meteors when entering the Earth atmosphere. How is it called the most spectacular meteoritic shower? Solution: the Perseid answer is found by solving a crossword puzzle.

Figure 4. Nineth ESCAPE MOON card. Question: In the future, spacecraft will bring astronauts to the Moon. Mazem is receiving a new message, that suggests him to take shelter inside the Jules Verne crater. Kids need to find it on the lunar map. Solution: Provide the location of the crater like in battleship.

This activity was initially tested during the European Researcher’s Night (September 2024) in Milan and later presented at the French high school in Milan (lycée Stendhal). Feedback revealed that two questions turned out to be too difficult for the age targeted. The game was later adapted and simplified for a 40-hour educational project titled “Passeggiando tra i pianeti” (Walking among planets), focused on Solar System exploration. This program took place in March 2025, in a primary school in Padova (Primary School Falcone and Borsellino), under PNRR fundings. One of the most liked tasks among ~10 years old kids was to locate a crater in the lunar map (Figure 4).

The game takes about one hour and can be tailored to different age groups and interests. ESCAPE MOON is available to the entire LUMIO science team for further use and improvement.It will be part of the official CNR catalogue of activities for schools.

References

[1] Cipriano A. M., Dei Tos D. A. and Topputo F. (2018), Front. Astron. Space Sci. 5:29.

[2] Topputo F., et al. (2023), Icarus, 389, 115213.

Acknowledgements

ESCAPE MOON was funded by the Italian Space Agency through the agreement n. F43C23000340001 entitled “Supporto scientifico alla missione LUMIO”.

The shorter version of the game was prepared for a 40-hour activity funded by PNRR, in the framework of strengthening of educational offer, focusing on developeing new skills (Missione 4 – Istruzione e ricerca - Componente 1 – Potenziamento dell’offerta dei servizi di istruzione dagli asili nido alle università – Investimento 3.1 “Nuove competenze e nuovi linguaggi” del Piano nazionale di ripresa eresilienza, finanziato dall’Unione europea – Next Generation EU).