I created this activity to help students to visualize the relationship
between the motions of Earth and Moon, and Moon's phases seen from
Earth. It does require a considerable amount of time to cut out
the pages and glue them in order. However, depending on the level
of your students, it can be assigned as homework, or it can be
started in class then finished as homework.
In my experience most students have been intrigued by this simple form
of animation.
The student materials can be printed with the "print" command on your
browser. It works best if the printer is set to "black only".
1. Cut out the flip - book pages. Suggest that students only cut
out 6-8 pages at a time, and glue them together before cutting out
more. This reduces the chances of lost pages.
2. Put page 0 on the bottom, face up. Glue page 1 on top of page 0,
page 2 on top of page1, etc.
3. It is important that the right edges of the pages be even.
Otherwise they will not flip evenly.
4. Place the compleated flip - book with page 0 flat on the table, roll
the other pages back without creasing them. release the pages one
at a time with your thumb nail. If it is done properly you should
see Moon revolving around its orbit.
The pages of the flip - book were originally made as slides of a Power
Point presentation. You may request the presentation by e-mail
specify the desired file format:
html - can be viewed with a browser. ppt - can be displayed with
the Power Point program.
