✨🌛Secret of Moon Phases: Make a 🌞🌍🌕 Model

Does the moon produce its own light? Why do we see different shapes of the moon in a month?

In our first Try Five+ workshop with 5th class, these simple questions sparked a full engineering challenge. Instead of just showing diagrams of lunar phases, we decided to build the sun-earth-moon system.

In this session, we explored how light and the motions of celestial bodies explain the moon phases. First, by doing simple experiment (like spray clean water to see the path of laser light), they will observe that light travels in straight lines in a clear medium. Next, students explored and discovered why the Moon has different phases. We made hypothesis, test out with the models and made conclusion.

During hands-on activity, we started with a quick recap on electronics (so surprised to hear them explaining complicated concepts like electrons and short cut circuit!). Working in groups, the students made simple circuits with least help from teachers and tutor. Once the “Sun” was shining, out came the foam balls, toothpicks, and cardboard to make the whole model. We made a rotating platform where the “Moon” (a tiny clay ball) orbits the “Earth” (foam ball).