Visualizing the Earth and Moon Relationship via Scaled Drawings

by: Chuck Fidler and Sharon Dotger

Students’ difficulties with accurately conceptualizing the relationships among the Earth, Moon, and Sun are well documented. Any teacher who has seen the film A Private Universe (Schneps and Sadler 1988) will remember the challenge the interviewees experienced when trying to explain their understanding of this phenomenon. This paper describes a strategy to help students develop a model of the Earth/Moon relationship that is correct both in terms of the scale sizes and the distances between them and extends previous work present in Science Scope (see Wallace, Dickerson, and Hopkins 2007: Riddle 2006a).

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Type Journal ArticlePub Date 12/1/2009Stock # ss09_033_04_14Volume 033Issue 04

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Arlene Jurewicz Leighton
Arlene Jurewicz Leighton

Using scale to understand Earth/Moon Relationship

Often models and drawings found in textbooks and web sites do not take into account the 5 degrees tilt of the Moon's orbit relative to the orbital plane of the Earth around the Sun. These ... See More

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