Seasons and the Sun: Crash Course Kids 11.1

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[INTRO MUSIC] Winter, spring, summer, fall, Seasons, I just love them all. Other than inspiring me to make up goofy poetry, why wouldn't you love the seasons? There's always something to look forward to! You already know that summer means long days of fun in the sun, and winter means shorter days. Not to mention building snowmen and making lots of 'Frozen' references! Okay, so clearly, the Sun and seasons are linked - but how? You already know that the sun is pretty important - it IS the center of the solar system after all. You also know that our planet, Earth, revolves around the sun, making its orbit once every 365 days. And remember, Earth isn't taking that lap while it's standing straight up and down, instead it's tilted on its axis, the invisible line around which our planet spins. Put together the Earth's tilt on its axis, and the orbit it makes around the sun, and you get the yearly pattern we call seasons. Let's see how. Since the Earth is tilted, for part of the year, one of the hemispheres — which is half of the earth — is leaning toward the sun, and the other part of the year it's leaning away. Let's follow the northern hemisphere once around the Sun to see how this works. In June, the northern hemisphere is tilted towards the Sun. This means that it's getting a lot of direct sunlight - light that's hitting it straight on. If you are sat directly underneath a bulb, you know that things can get pretty hot, and that's exactly what's happening to the northern hemisphere. It's summertime, and the living is easy. Temperatures are warm, and days are long. In December, though, the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the Sun. It's getting indirect sunlight, meaning light is hitting it at an angle. Indirect sunlight means cooler temperatures, shorter days, and, for lots of folks, hot cocoa and bundling up, since it's winter. But how can the angle of the Sun's light make a difference between hot and cold? Well, try this little trick with a flashlight. Get a flashlight and dim the lights in your room a little bit. If you turn the flashlight on and point it straight down onto your desk, you'll see a small, bright, concentrated circle of light. That's kind of how sunlight hits the northern hemisphere during the summer: bright and intense. Now move the flashlight down at an angle and point it at the top of your desk. See how the light isn't as bright and is less intense where it falls? That's like the sunlight we get in winter. But what about spring and autumn? During these two seasons, the Earth's orbit causes the northern hemisphere to be neither tilted toward the Sun, nor away from it. So temperatures during the spring and fall are more moderate: not too hot and not too cold, since the entire globe is getting about the same amount of direct sunlight at once. Now, let's take a look at how the amount of sunlight affects temperatures in the northern hemisphere over the course of a whole year. An easy way to show this yearly pattern is by using a graph. This graph shows the average high temperature in each month for one year in Toronto, Canada - where I live. Looking at the graph, we see that during December, January, and February — when the northern hemisphere is getting very little direct sunlight — temperatures are low. And in the months of June, July, and August — when the tilt of the Earth on its axis is causing Toronto to get direct sunlight — the temperatures are much higher. Proof positive that something is going on here, and that something is this: The season that you're experiencing right this very minute is caused in part by the amount of direct sunlight you're getting. So, seasons are caused by the Earth's tilt on its axis as it cruises around the Sun in its orbit. When one hemisphere gets more direct sunlight, it's summer there. Temperatures are warmer, days are longer, and nights are shorter. And when it gets more indirect sunlight, it's winter. Temperatures are cooler, days are shorter, and nights are longer. And now you know what causes summer, spring, autumn, and winter. [OUTRO MUSIC]
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Channel: Crash Course Kids
Views: 2,164,592
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: Sun, seasons, why are there seasons?, winter, spring, summer, fall, autumn, axis, tilt, earth's tilt, earth's rotation, rotation, Astronomy (Field Of Study), Season (Quotation Subject), Spring (Quotation Subject), crash course, Crash Course, Sabrina Cruz, Nerdy and Quirky
Id: b25g4nZTHvM
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 3min 56sec (236 seconds)
Published: Thu May 21 2015
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