Enacting Planets to Understand Occultation Phenomena

JOURNAL OF OCCULTATION AND ECLIPSE (JOE); ISSN 2522-7955; No. 6, 2019

Emmanuel Rollinde1
1Laboratoire de Didactique André Revuz, EA 4434, Université Cergy-Pontoise, 33, boulevard du Port, France, Email: emmanuel.rollinde@u-cergy.fr

Abstract
The Solar System motivates students to interest themselves in sciences, as a large number of concepts may be easily introduced through the observation and understanding of the planet's motion. Using a large representation of the Solar System at a human scale (“a human Orrery”), we have conducted different activities with 10 to 16 years old children. In this contribution, we discuss the different scientific concepts covered by the Human Orrery, allowing the connection of both science and mathematics subjects in schools. We then detail how this pedagogical tool may serve to introduce abstract concepts required to understand occultation phenomena through a modeling activity.

Keyword: Solar System, Science education, Mathematics education, Enation, Newtonian dynamics

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