Seasons: Tilt, Orbit, and Temperature

Ever wonder why we have seasons on earth? We used an interactive tool to investigate how the tilt of the earth affects things like temperature, day length, and the path the sun takes through the sky and recorded videos for you.

You can view the four videos of the simulation included at the bottom of the page.  These videos give you all the data you need to complete the assignment.

Read this background information (Links to an external site.) on planetary tilt and seasons.

• Watch the video of Earth (you can increase the resolution if the video is blurry by clicking on the star on the bottom right of the YouTube window).  Record the inclination, and the maximum and minimum temperature (as given by the thermometer on the interactive – cold, cold 1/2, cool, mild, etc.) for Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall.
• Repeat step two while watching the videos below with the inclinations of Venus and then Uranus.

You should now have temperature data (cold, cool, mild, hot etc.) during the rotations for inclinations of Earth (23*), Venus (2*), and Uranus (86*).

1. Before you watch the final video of 50? predict in your mind what you think the temperature range will be during each of the seasons.

Watch the final video and record the same data you did in steps 2 and 3.

Turn in your observations of the relative temperatures for all four seasons for these 4 inclinations in a Word document (or similar) as part of your Lab 3 Report.  You should include a data table summarizing the results of your 4 virtual experiments for the four seasons.

1. You will discuss your analysis of these observations in Yellowdig Discussion 3.
2. Lab 3 Report Directions (10 pts)
3. You should write a full lab report that includes: an “Introduction”, a “Materials and Methods”, “Results”, “Discussion” sections. This lab report should be between 300 and 600 words. Only the submission of a single Word document is required for this lab report. Please ensure that your document is either a .doc OR .docx file to ensure that we can easily access your file from both a PC and Mac computer.
4. Introduction
5. Describe what the term “tilt” means
6. Include characteristics of Earth, Venus, and Uranus

Include a hypothesis for the experiment 

Materials and Methods (this should be written in past tense and in paragraph format. Write this section as if someone else needs to complete the experiment solely using the information you’ve given here)

1. What materials do you need to complete this experiment? 

What exact methods did you use to complete this experiment?

Results

Inclusion of data table that displays all collected data

Brief summary of results in paragraph format

Discussion

How did tilt impact minimum and maximum temperature

• Relate these changes to day length and the path of sun through the sky
• Was your hypothesis supported or rejected?