The document discusses how Earth's interactions with the sun and moon cause night and day, seasons, and climate patterns. It explains that Earth's rotation on its axis causes day and night, while its revolution around the sun over the course of a year determines the seasons. The tilt of Earth's axis and latitude affect how direct sunlight hits different areas of the planet, making the equator warmer and poles colder. Seasons occur because the amount of direct sunlight varies throughout the year in different hemispheres.
The Sky
Astronomy is about us. As we learn about astronomy, we learn about ourselves. We search for an answer to the question “What are we?” The quick answer is that we are thinking creatures living on a planet that circles a star we call the sun. In this chapter, we begin trying to understand that answer. What does it mean to live on a planet?
The preceding chapter gave us a quick overview of the universe, and chapters later in the book will discuss the details. This chapter and the next help us understand what the universe looks like seen from the surface of our spinning planet.
But appearances are deceiving. We will see in Chapter 4 how difficult it has been for humanity to understand what we see in the #sky every day. In fact, we will discover that modern science was born when people tried to understand the appearance of the sky.
Rotation and Revolution of the Earth
Aphelion and Perihelion
Four Seasons
Seasonal Changes
Solstice and Equinoxes
Standard Time Zones
Land of the Midnight Sun
The Sky
Astronomy is about us. As we learn about astronomy, we learn about ourselves. We search for an answer to the question “What are we?” The quick answer is that we are thinking creatures living on a planet that circles a star we call the sun. In this chapter, we begin trying to understand that answer. What does it mean to live on a planet?
The preceding chapter gave us a quick overview of the universe, and chapters later in the book will discuss the details. This chapter and the next help us understand what the universe looks like seen from the surface of our spinning planet.
But appearances are deceiving. We will see in Chapter 4 how difficult it has been for humanity to understand what we see in the #sky every day. In fact, we will discover that modern science was born when people tried to understand the appearance of the sky.
Rotation and Revolution of the Earth
Aphelion and Perihelion
Four Seasons
Seasonal Changes
Solstice and Equinoxes
Standard Time Zones
Land of the Midnight Sun
Genesis' mystery of God creating Our Universe is explored through lens of Computer-like Universe Tools verse by verse in the Bible's Genesis 1 & 2 Accounts with thought provoking questions.
* What is the nature of time?
* Was light created when God said "Let there be light?"
* How was the earth lighted with day & night before the sun, moon, and stars were created?
* What scientific possibilities did God illustrate in the creation account?
Universe Tools Paradigm
Universe Schematic
Literal Creator Days
Thought Experiment
Challenging statements & questions & explanations
* What are Literal Creator Days?
* How does this compare to other viewpoints?
* When do science and God's Word fit together?
Learn more at http://creationopia.wordpress.com and http://bibleopia.wordpress.com
Another of our guest speakers #CCRI2015 Tom MacMillan from Soil Association gives a talk on field labs and farmer innovation. Key message: farmers already make a significant investment in R&D, but they need to be better supported in their efforts.
Maybe too in-depth for most elementary students, but very good broad coverage for teacher background or more advanced students in elementary or middle school.
Lab 6 Tides and Coastal processes Goals1. Understand wha.docxsmile790243
Lab 6: Tides and Coastal processes
Goals:
1. Understand what causes tides.
2. Understand how deep-ocean waves change and break when they reach a coastline.
3. Understand how shoreline transport of sediment occurs and how it is affected by human activities.
Tides
Tides are actually waves that move through the oceans and large lakes. In the oceans, they have periods of several hours and wavelengths of 1000s of kilometers. Depending on the wave period that dominates in different parts of the world, some places have only one high and one low tide a day (diurnal tides), whereas others have two high (about equal to each other) and two low tides (also about equal to each other) known as semidiurnal. A third type is mixed tides with two highs and two lows a day with different heights, (a high high, a low high, a high low and a low low). California, as the rest of the west coast has mixed tides.
The gravitational pull of the Sun and the Moon causes tides on Earth. The gravitational influence of an object is directly related to its mass and its distance from another object. So even though the Sun has much more mass than the Moon, it is over 380 times farther away from the Earth than the Moon. Therefore, our little Moon wins out and has the most influence on the tides on Earth.
As the Earth spins about its axis, centrifugal force keeps water balanced on all sides of the planet. However, the Moon's gravitational forces disrupt this balance by pulling the water towards the Moon. A double "bulge" is formed—one side pulling toward the Moon and the opposite side pulling away from it, just like swinging a water balloon causes it to stretch both toward AND away from your hand. The areas where the bulging occurs experience high tides.
Tides are predictable, but their periods do not coincide with the 24 hour Earth day. The Moon takes about 24 hours and 50 minutes to line up again exactly with the same point on the Earth. Therefore, the timing of the tides shifts almost an hour a day. Because the relative positions of the Sun, Earth and Moon change over the course a day, a month and a year, the absolute heights of diurnal, semidiurnal and mixed tides vary over these periods. For example, even within the same ~25 hour period, the heights of the semidiurnal tides are not exactly the same, although they are close. Even more significant changes are seen over a monthly cycle, with higher-than-normalspring tides (not named for the season but because the water "springs" higher than normal) and the lower-than-normalneap tides.
Exercise 1.
Let's investigate the causes of spring and neap tides. Go to this websitehttp://aspire.cosmic-ray.org/Labs/Tides/tides_simulator.html . Pick the student version because the teacher version has an annoying note in the middle of the simulation screen—the teacher version will not give you any more information than the student version to answer these questions. Click on the tide simulator. Click the box to turn on spring/neap ...
4. Guide Questions Why do we have night and day? How long is a day/a year? How does sunlight hit the Earth’s surface? (equator vspoles) Why is it warmer at the equator and colder at the poles? Why are there seasons? What is climate and what causes different climates? What is longitude and latitude and how are they related to climate?
8. DAY AND YEAR Rotation earth’s spinning on its axis 1,600 km/hr (rate of spin at any point along the equator) Revolution movement of earth around the sun
9. Leap Year It actually takes the Earth a little longer than a year to travel around the Sun — 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds, to be exact. It was the ancient Egyptians who first figured out that the solar year and the man-made calendar year didn't always match up. It was the Romans who first designated February 29 as leap day That extra day was added to February because February used to be thelast month of the year http://www.chiff.com/a/leap-year.htm
10. When do we have leap years? a leap day happens in years only divisible by four, i.e., 1996, 2000, 2004 Another stipulation ruled that no year divisible by 100 would have a leap year, except if it was divisible by 400. Thus, 1900 was not a leap year ... but 2000 was! Go figure.
11. Leap Years When was the last leap year? 2008 When is the next? 2012
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13. Number of Daylight Hours Every part of Earth gets about the same number of hours of daylight per year half a year of full daylight BUT, not received the same way EQUATOR: it is delivered evenly -- exactly half a day, every single day, throughout the year. POLES: it is delivered all at once -- half a year of daylight, and then half a year of darkness. MIDLATITUDES: it is delivered in greater or lesser amounts, throughout the year -- some days having more than half a day of daylight, but others, half a year later, having less than half a day, and the average, throughout the year, being half a day of daylight per day
14. AMOUNT OF SUNSHINE However, although the different regions receive the same number of hours of daylight, they do NOT receive the same amount of sunshine the amount of sunshine which is received over a certain amount of the ground depends upon how high the Sun is in the sky (the angle of the sun’s rays)
16. When sunlight shines from overhead (on left), one square foot of sunlight falls on one square foot of ground. When it shines at a shallow angle (on right), each square foot of sunlight spreads out over many feet of ground. http://cseligman.com/text/sky/climate.htm
17. Effect of How Sun Hits Earth Equator always warmer (tropical) Poles always colder (arctic)
20. Earth Motions: PRECESSION Precession – Earth’s axis maintains approximately the same angle of tilt, but the direction in which the axis points continually changes. Currently, the axis points toward Polaris. In the year 14,000, it will point toward Vega. By 28,000, it will point toward Polaris again.
22. SEASONS We have seasons because: The Earth’s axis is tilted 23.5o, so different locations receive different amounts of direct sunlight throughout the year.
29. FACTORS THAT AFFECT CLIMATE Axis or tilt of the Earth -length of day & seasons Latitude (sun angle) Elevation Precipitation (rain, snow, hail) Currents (wind, ocean)
35. The latitude and longitude system Longitude lines run north-south and meet at the North and South Poles; also called meridians. Latitude lines run east-west and don't meet; also called parallels.
40. Latitude Some important lines of latitude include The Equator – 0° The Tropic of Cancer – 23.5° N The Tropic of Capricorn – 23.5° S The Arctic Circle – 66.5° N The Antarctic Circle – 66.5° S
41. Longitude The longitude of a country is how far around the earth it lies from London = 0 ° (Prime Meridian). For example Manila - 120° East New York - 74° West The time zones follow lines of longitude that are every 15° away from London
53. Tides Tides are created by the gravitational force of the Sun and Moon. The Moon’s gravity pulls Earth along an imaginary line connecting Earth and the Moon. This creates bulges of ocean water (tides). The bulges remain aligned with the Moon, so that ocean levels rise and fall as the Earth rotates.
54.
55. This creates two tidal bulges…One facing the Moon & the other on the opposite side.
56. Oceans facing Moon bulge because they are being pulled out from the Earth.