What are the reasons for our seasons? Before we dive into the seasons, we need to understand rotation and revolution.
The Earth is an oblate spheroid (round and slightly flat at the poles). The Earth rotates one time on its axis every day. You can model this by turning around. Revolution is the movement of Earth around the Sun. The earth orbits, or revolves around the Sun one time each year.
There is a common misconception that the Earth’s distance from the sun causes seasons, but the reason for our seasons is actually the Earth’s tilt. During the northern hemisphere winter months (December-February), the Earth is tilted such that the Southern hemisphere (tropic of Capricorn 23.5 degrees south) receives direct light from the sun, and the northern hemisphere receives indirect sunlight. During summer in the northern hemisphere, the Earth is tilted such that the northern hemisphere (tropic of cancer 23.5 degrees north) receives more direct sunlight.
For more information, visit http://www.morehead.unc.edu/Shows/EMS/seasons.htm
Comments
Great idea!
This topic is a very difficult for students to grasp. I've never seen it approached using temperature as part of a lesson- which makes complete sense. I would do this in conjunction with the AIMS activity "pasta parallels". This lesson uses angel hair pasta to represent the sun's rays; a good visual that would represent the sun's rays in another manner. I think that the two lessons would be good to do together for students in younger grades or for those students who are not grasping the concept. For this posted lesson- I would love to see more handouts/worksheets to help reinforce what the students are learning. Otherwise I think the activity itself is a great idea. Thanks!
The handouts were amazing and
The handouts were amazing and very well laid out. I really liked the way it was introduced with the PowerPoint and video clips. Although sometimes we tend to start this type of lesson with a hands-on engage or demonstration it seemed more meaningful for the students to begin it in with the steps that this lesson was arranged. My students we very engaged in each part of the lesson.
I did not feel that this was a lesson that could be done in the “Less than One Hour” timeframe. This lesson took me two class periods and could have easily taken more. I would recommend this upgraded to the “1-2 Hour” or “2-3 Hour” time range.
very good
very good
Thanks for this lesson! My
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