Explain to the students that they will experiment to see what happens when a meteor falls into a liquid, and that one of the features they should look for is the central peak. If you are using medicine droppers, show how to hold the dropper about a foot over the pan and allow a drop of water to fall into the pan. Encourage all members of the team to observe what happens from the side and from just above the surface of the water. Have the students take turns releasing drops and observing what happens. Each team should discuss their results and draw what they see on their papers.
Ripples come from the center, hit the walls of the pan, and bounce back and forth.
A mound of water forms in the center of the crater, right after the drop is dropped. Ask the students what crater features they saw that they may not have seen in the experiment with solids. In these cases, even though the surface may have been solid before the impact of the meteor, we can sometimes see the central peak caused when the Moon's surface turned to molten rock for a few minutes, then solidified before the peak had a chance to become level again. Before real astronauts landed on the Moon, they needed to study a map of the Moon. Hand out a copy of the Moon Map to each student.