What better way to teach your students about the beauty and wonder behind lunar eclipses than to teach about the first "supermoon" lunar eclipse to grace Earth's skies in three decades?

"The supermoon total lunar eclipse, which occurs on Sept. 27, features a full moon that looks significantly larger and brighter than usual. It will be the first supermoon eclipse since 1982, and the last until 2033, NASA officials said," according to Space.com.

While normal eclipses are a somewhat frequent phenomenon, according to NASA supermoon eclipses have only occurred five times since 1900 (1910, 1928, 1946, 1964 and 1982).

This upcoming supermoon eclipse at the end of the month will be only the sixth one in the past century.

According to Space.com:

Lunar and solar eclipses are both caused by alignments of the moon, Earth and sun. In the case of a lunar eclipse, the Earth is the middle of this line and the moon passes into the planet's shadow. But the moon doesn't go completely dark during total eclipses; rather, it often turns a reddish hue because it's hit by sunlight bent by Earth's atmosphere. For this reason, total lunar eclipses are often referred to as 'blood moons.'

When it comes down to teaching about the science behind lunar eclipses in the classroom, use this infographic from Space.com that lays it out nicely for your students to understand.

Read the full article here and comment with your thoughts below.

Article by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor

09/02/2015