The Sun - Earth - Moon system - R2P

This resource provides a lesson plan showing how to use mental model building to teach about the Sun-Earth-Moon system. The approach used in the lesson is based on education research which is summarised in a separate research summary document.

The lesson includes an activity where pupils look at different models of the arrangement of the Earth, Sun and Moon in space and their relative movement and assess whether each model can be used to explain a series of observations provided on a separate worksheet. They then select the best model and justify their choice. This approach helps pupils explain:

• day and night on Earth
• the reason for different lengths of the day between summer and winter in the different hemispheres of Earth
• the change in the appearance of the Moon from Earth over 28 days.

The research summary suggests that pupils most effectively understand key models of science when they actively partake in the construction of the models and are aware of their strengths and limitations in describing and explaining scientific concepts.

This resource is part of a collection of research informed secondary science lesson plans produced as part of the Research-2-Practice (R2P) project undertaken by research teams at the University of Roehampton, University of Lincoln, York St John University and KYRA research school, between 2020 and 2021, which was funded by Wellcome.

The overall aim of the project was to enhance the quality of teaching and learning in science by giving time-pressed teachers quick and easy access to relevant research to inform their practice and provide exemplar lesson plans to show how the research could be used in the classroom. More resources can be found here.