Earth's Rotation
What causes day and night on Earth?
Earth's rotation on its axis.
What happens to a shadow when the Sun is high in the sky?
Answer: The shadow is usually shorter.
How long does it take Earth to make one complete orbit around the Sun?
Answer: About 1 year, or 365 days.
Why do different stars appear in the night sky during different seasons?
Answer: Earth moves to different parts of its orbit around the Sun.
What is the name of the Moon phase when the Moon appears completely lit?
Answer: Full moon.
About how long does it take Earth to make one complete rotation?
About 24 hours.
What happens to a shadow when the Sun is low in the sky?
Answer: The shadow is usually longer.
What causes Earth's seasons?
Answer: Earth's tilted axis as Earth orbits the Sun.
Does Earth stay in the same place as it travels around the Sun?
Answer: No. Earth moves around the Sun in an orbit.
What is the name of the Moon phase when the Moon is difficult to see because the lighted side faces away from Earth?
Answer: New moon.
What is Earth's axis?
An imaginary line that Earth spins around.
Why does the length of a shadow change during the day?
Answer: Earth's rotation makes the Sun appear to move across the sky.
During summer in New Jersey, is the Sun generally higher or lower in the sky than during winter?
Answer: Higher in the sky.
If you see a certain group of stars in the winter, will you always see that same group of stars at the same time of year?
Answer: Yes, because Earth's motion creates repeating seasonal patterns.
Why does the Moon appear to change shape during the month?
Answer: We see different amounts of the Moon's sunlit side as the Moon orbits Earth.
If your part of Earth is facing the Sun, are you experiencing day or night?
Day
A student measures a stick's shadow in the morning and again around noon. When will the shadow probably be longer?
Answer: In the morning.
During which season would you generally expect longer shadows at noon in New Jersey: summer or winter?
Answer: Winter.
Why might a student see different stars in the summer than they saw in the winter?
Answer: Earth is in a different part of its orbit around the Sun.
About how long does it take the Moon to complete one cycle of phases?
Answer: About one month.
Earth rotates once every 24 hours. How does this rotation create a pattern of day and night?
As Earth rotates, different parts of Earth face toward the Sun and then away from the Sun, causing day and night.
A student notices that a tree's shadow is very long in the morning, very short around noon, and long again in the afternoon. What pattern does this show?
Answer: The shadow changes length in a predictable pattern as the Sun's apparent position changes during the day.
A student measures the shadow of the same stick at noon during summer and winter. The winter shadow is longer. What does this tell us about the Sun's position in the sky?
Answer: The Sun is generally lower in the sky during winter than during summer.
The same group of stars appears in the night sky every winter. What does this repeating pattern tell scientists?
Answer: Earth's orbit around the Sun creates predictable, repeating seasonal patterns in the night sky.
The Moon does not actually change shape during its phases. Explain why it looks different from Earth.
Answer: The Moon is always round, but as it orbits Earth, we see different amounts of its sunlit side.