Dance of the Seasons

I’ll let you watch some of the nonsense we’ve been doing in Grade 6 Science class before providing commentary.

Please do not judge us!

And now for an explanation…

We are learning about the seasons.  Besides being something that the Province requires us to teach (and grade 6s to learn), it’s the source of many misconceptions. But when asked what truly causes the seasons, the one word that should come to mind is this… TILT.

And so to demonstrate this idea, I came up with something of a seasonal dance, wherein as we tilt at the waist and rotate counterclockwise, we can mimmick the various inclinations of Terra as she revolves around Sol.

If this is confusing to you, please ask your grade 6 student for a better explanation.

The North is our head,  the South is our, um… tailbone.  And as we revolve around Sol, our two hemispheres present themselves more directly to the rays of Sol, and so experience preferential warming (or cooling) known as summer (or winter).

As I say, ask the kids about it.

Around the world in 60 seconds

James Drake, a US-based science educator has produced a stunning timelapse video of Planet Earth at night.

Notable landmarks featured in the video include (by order of appearance): Vancouver Island, Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Mexico City, the Gulf of Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, Guatemala, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, the Amazon, Peru and Chile. The Earth’s ionosphere (thin yellow line) is also visible throughout the video.

The video features over 600 pictures from the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth website. For more visit James Drake’s Infinity Imagined website.

Powers of ten

Multiply by ten.

Start ten million light years from the Milky Way, which is our home galaxy (and which is itself 100 000 light years in diameter). It is but a splotch in the visible universe. But when you zoom in by a factor of ten times, you can see better, and the spiral arms become visible. Zoom in again, and all of the sudden you’re in our neighbourhood, the eastern spiral arm.

Each click brings you ten times closer to Earth. But then what? Click and find out.

It’s a java powered animation that brings you from the verge of our galaxy to deep inside teh cell of a leaf, magnifying by ten times each step.