1. Day and night and the Seasons
SPACE Lesson 1
Day and night and the Seasons

2. Day, Night and Seasons Lesson Objectives
To identify that day and night is caused by the rotation of the earth on it’s axis.
To identify that the seasons are caused by the earth rotating around the sun

3. Day and night 24 hours How long is one day? How long is one year?
365¼ days
The Earth spins on its axis, which is tilted at an angle of 23.5° it is always the same direction.
The earth also rotates around the sun
So the earth spins on its axis as well as spinnind around the sun. So a day is how long it takes the earth to spin on its axis which is 24hours. The time is takes to travel around the sun is 1 year. The spinning on the axis causes day and night and the rotation around the sun causes the changes in seasons.
There is an imaginary line that passes through the Earth from the North Pole to the South Pole. This is the Earth's axis. This axis is not straight up and down - it is slightly tilted (slanted). The tilt is about 23.4 degrees and is always in the same basic direction.
This causes day and night and the seasons.

4. Day and night sunlight n i g h t d a y
So as we said it take 24 hours to travel one complete rotation. Because the earth rotates it allows life to exist all arund the world. What would happen if the earth didn’t spin?????? One half would always be in darkness and need sunlight; to grow plants and live. So the rotation allows everywhere in the world to be accessibale. As it is always moving this is why we have time and different coutries are in different time zones. Has anyone heard of GMT, what is it? Greenwich Mean time. Greenwich is in London and marks the starting point of every time zone. It is the average time it takes to rotate noon-noon (24hours) and sets the official time around the globe.
It take the Earth 24 hours to complete one rotation about its axis.

5. What time is it?
 It is 04:00 in London. What time is it in other parts of the Earth?
Casablanca
Place
GMT
Time
Casablanca +1
Pretoria +2
Antanarivo +3
Philippines +8
Philippines
05:00
06:00
07:00
12:00
Antanarivo
Pretoria
So GMT is the time it is in England. If it is 04.00am in london then using the GMT info what time will it be in the rest of the world?? The further we travel around the globe the more the numbers get, if you went the other way the numbers would be mius.

6. The rotation of the Earth

7. The seasons spring in the UK summer winter in the UK in the UK autumn
So we know that the Earth orbits the sun while it spins on its axis that is tilted. The tilt is always in the same basic direction.
Therefore as the earth orbits the sun on its tilted axis, different hemispheres face the sun at different times. This causes the seasons.
autumn
in the UK

8. What is the season?

9. The position of the Sun and the seasons
east
west
summer
autumn
winter
How the tilt produces seasons; the first is to do with how hight the sun appears in the sky. In summer the sun appears to be very high in the sky and it feels very warm. In winter the sun appears a lot lowers in the sky and shines in your eyes, it feels a lot cooler.
In summer england and the north hemisphere is tiltes towards the sun, The sun is shining more directly with britain and so the sun appears to be high in the sky.
In winter, the northern hemistphere is tilte away and so the sun is not directly above us and it appears lower.
When the sun is higher the the angle the rays hit england is more direct, therefore we get more heat. In winter the sun is lower and so the rays are spread out more and so the temperature is lower.
It also is affected by how long the sun stays in the sky. More heat and light energy in the summer so the temperature is higher.
Copy the diagram above and add two ‘sun lines’ – one line for summer and one line for winter.

10. What have you learnt?
It is Winter in Britain because....
1) The Sun shines on us for a shorter time in Winter than in Summer so we get less heat.  
2) The Sun's rays reach us at an angle, 'spreading-out' the heat over a larger part of the Earth.  
Neither 1 nor 2  
Both 1 and 2

11. Answer questions on page 162-163 of Go Science 1 book
Q. What causes seasons?
Q. Why are the seasons in the Southern Hemisphere opposite to those in the the northern hemisphere?
Q. Why are the days longer in the summer than the winter?
Use text book to help

12. Plenary - Pyramid of knowledge
1 question you have about the lesson
2 things you would like to know more about
3 things you have learned today