Purpose

The purpose of this project is to see if people, of different ages, know and understand the idea about the changing length of the daylight with the change in seasons. The is designed to find out if students can relate the apparent path of the Sun as seen from Earth to the length of daylight. 

Explanation

Sun makes a shorter and lower arc in the sky in winter. A shorter arc means the Sun spends less time above the horizon, so days are shorter. Shorter days are one reason that it is colder in winter in the temperature and polar zones. When the Sun is above the horizon longer it has more time to heat up the land, and there is less time for the land to cool off at night. Also when the Sun is spread out over a larger area, so it is less intense, and the land absorbs less thermal energy.

Related Ideas

1. The Sun, Moon, and stars all appear to move slowly across the sky
2. The rotation of the Earth on its axis every 24 hours produces the night-and-day cycle
3. The number of hours of daylight and the intensity of sunlight both vary in a predictable pattern that depends on how far north or south of the equator the place is
4. Due to the Earth turning daily on an axis that is tilted relative to the place on the Earth's yearly orbit around the Sun, sun-light falls more intensely on different parts of the Earth during the year
5. Seasons result from variations in the amount of the Sun's energy hitting the surface, due to the tilt of the Earth's rotation on its axis and the length of day

Suggestions to Learn

One of the reasons it is difficult for students to learn about the causes of the Earth's seasons is that the psace viewpoint is introduced too early, at the elementary level, before children have an opportunity to make the critical observations of the Sun's changing path in the sky that explain why it is warmer in the summer and colder in the winter. A visit to a planetarium or use of a classroom planetarium can be very helpful. Once students understand how the path of the Sun changes with the seasons, they should discuss how such changes affect average daily temperatures in the summer and winter.

Conclusion

I would say that it is fairly clear that the people I interviewed were not science majors when they were in college, but some did show an understanding of why the sun light is shorter in the winter time. I decided that it would be best if I interviewed people from different ages and gender so that way the conclusions I came to were not biased in anyway. At first, I had very little understanding of how and why it was that the sunlight came out more in the summer than it did the winter. As i did more research, I kept learning more and more interesting facts that made me want to keep reading. Even though I did not completely understand every thing I was reading, I understood the main concepts and could teach the main jist of it to someone who has no idea at all. After the interview process, I would inform them of the best answer in which I thought was appropriate. They then had a much better understanding and grasp of the whole concept. All in all, I would say that this interview process went well because not only did I learn something new, but I was able to teach people things they didn't know either.