Moon Cycles
Orbit of the moon around the Earth (to Scale).
  
Description:
Discover the cycles of the moon (full moon, half moon etc) and how these cycles relate to the positions of the Sun, Moon and Earth.
Three separate paddles hold the Sun, Earth and Moon so that the user can move them around and explore how they interact. Another paddle shows what the moon looks like to someone on the surface of the Earth (in the center of the blue ‘view cone’) - this image changes as the positions of the other paddles changes.
As such, the user can interact with the paddles to explore how the relationships between the Sun, Earh and Moon affect the moon cycles. The results can be seen both from a ‘gods eye’ view of the paddles (the sun accurately lights the Earth and Moon) and from the view of someone on the surface of the Earth. The connection between these two views is a central concept - being able to go from an external observer to imagining the view from the Earth’s surface is a major key to understanding moon cycles. This key concept is hard to convey using traditional methods. Using this module, we commonly observe learners (from childhood to retirement) grasping the concept in only a couple of minutes.
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