Teachers note:
Because of the reading involved and some of the ideas dealt with, younger students may need some help with the instructions in this puzzle. However, students should make their own observations and interpretations without being given "answers". Students can figure out the puzzle with only basic understanding of heat making things hot and causing them to melt. This puzzle addresses the National Research Council National Education Standards for inquiry and properties of materials.
The basic idea of my research does involve some concepts that may be tough for younger kids (e.g. my research deals with mass balance and chemical cycles, which is an Earth Science standard for grades 9-12). In particular in this puzzle, the idea of concentration is involved (which is symbolized in this puzzle by how close the "Y's" are together), the idea of something partly melting (symbolized in this puzzle with brown and red blocks representing solid and melted parts), and even the core idea of connecting experimental evidence to observations of natural rock may be tough, although this last is the key thing I hope students can learn from this puzzle.
To get anything out of this puzzle, students will need
to "Explore Moon Volcanoes", "Do Experiments on Moon Rocks", and think
about and discuss the puzzle for 20-60 minutes before attempting to
choose the "answer" to the puzzle.