8 B Mosaic Seasons- Climate- Weather

Welcome to our "Blog". The first unit we will be covering is Climate. We will look at how different processes affect our climate. The first topic we are looking at are the seasons. In class we used  the diagram from our book which can be viewed at PHschool.com. It is cfp-1520. We are also using www.explorelearning.com . Here we have been completing the gizmo on Seasons. Words that we should know: Vocabulary: Seasons: Earth, Moon, and Sun

• Altitude – in astronomy, the angle between an object in the sky and the horizon.

o If the Sun is directly overhead, it has an altitude of 90°. If the Sun is on the horizon, it has an altitude of 0°.



• Axis – an imaginary line around which an object rotates.

o Earth’s axis runs from the North Pole to the South Pole.

• Azimuth – the compass direction of a celestial object.

o You can think of azimuth as compass bearings. Azimuth tells you the direction of an object in the sky.



• Equinox – one of the two days of the year in which the length of the day is equal to the length of the night.

o On the equinoxes, neither the Northern Hemisphere nor the Southern Hemisphere is tilted toward or away from the Sun.

o The spring equinox occurs around March 21, and the fall equinox occurs around September 22.



• Horizon – the line along which the sky and the Earth appear to meet.



• Latitude – a location’s angular distance north or south of the equator.

o Latitude is measured in degrees north or south.

o The latitude of the equator is 0°, the latitude of the North Pole is 90° N, and the latitude of Washington, D.C., is 39° N.



• Revolution – the movement of an object around another object.

o The path most celestial bodies follow as they revolve around another celestial body is called an orbit. Most orbits are elliptical in shape.



• Rotation – the spinning of an object around an axis.

• Solstice – one of the two days of the year on which the sun reaches its greatest apparent distance north or south.

o The longest day of the year is the summer solstice. The shortest day of the year is the winter solstice.

o In the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice occurs around June 21, and the winter solstice occurs around December 21.

Answers to Gizmo: http://cs.explorelearning.com/materials/SeasonsEarthMoonSunSE_Key.doc