In the demonstrations thus far, students have “become”
the sun and created the sun–Earth relationship in front of
their eyes. The strength of this heliocentric “in front of
your face” depiction is that it readily enables students to
understand that Grandfather Sun sees Mother Earth very
differently on the winter versus summer solstices, and on
solstices versus equinoxes, and that Grandfather Sun sees
Mother Earth similarly on both spring and fall equinoxes.
Explanations using the language of Western science can
then be given. The weakness in this depiction is that it does
not include Earth’s orbit around the sun. This is addressed
by adding the component described next.