8th graders at Laramie Middle School, as part of MS-ESS-1 content, learned how earth’s tilt, its spin and orbit around the sun causes variations in the amount of sunlight throughout the year and how various lifeforms have adapted to these changes (leaf color changes, migration, hibernation, etc.).
In this outreach activity, students learned how the information collected by sensors mounted on stationary towers, planes, and satellites are used for tracking those changes. Satellite images acquired throughout the year showed the seasonal changes to the amount of green up in the northern and southern hemispheres (figure below). Students gathered the amount of sunlight received in Cheyenne, Wyoming and compared it to another city in the Southern Hemisphere.
Jared Krysl and Joshua Peterson, eighth grade science teachers commented “[This activity] helped to solidify the concepts brought up by our standard as it related to the amount of sunlight in a day and the formation of seasons due to the Earth’s tilt.”
This educational outreach activity was conducted on Feb 26 and 27, at Laramie Middle School, WY.
