Spring Ahead
Mar 10, 2019
As we spring ahead, your curious kids may be wondering why the days are getting longer. It’s not just because we’re setting our clocks ahead. Read on to learn about the tilt of the earth.
The earth moves in two different ways – it spins on its axis (an imaginary line through the north and south poles) and it also revolves around the sun. The earth rotates one full spin in one day and one full revolution around the sun in one year.
As the earth spins, the part of the planet facing the sun has light, or day, and the part away from the sun has shadow, or night. Shine a flashlight on a large ball to see this in action!
The earth revolves around the sun on a tilted axis (see picture). Here in the Northern hemisphere, the earth is tilted toward the sun during the summer and away from the sun during the winter. Because of the tilt, we get more sun (or longer days) in the summer and less sun (or shorter days) in the winter.
With more time in the sun it’s a great time to do some science experiments with shadows! Try these fun activities at home:
- Test the shadow made by different types of objects and talk about opaque, translucent, and transparent
- Measure how the size of a shadow changes depending on how far it is from the light source
- Check out your outdoor shadow at different times of the day
Join us at Noggin Builders this spring for more fun, hands-on STEM! Today only, you can “Spring Ahead” with 10% off a spring class session using coupon SPRINGAHEAD (Click here for Spring Class Schedule)
