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Test your mental strength with FCAT!
Mar. 11th, 2009 10:10 pmOkay, here’s an actual FCAT question one student described to me. See if you can answer it:
During the winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the Earth’s orbit brings it is closest to the sun. In the summer, Earth is farthest from the sun. Why, then, do we have cold weather in the winter and hot weather in the summer?
This was a fill-in short answer question.
One student said “I dunno.” Another said, “Daylight Savings Time.”
If they don’t know how to explain the seasons due to the(23 degree) tilt of the Earth’s axis, I don’t know what these kids are doing in Science class, but it’s certainly not paying attention.*
I know I knew about the tilt and the relation to the seasons when I was in high school. It’s only the first thing you learn about in the geology/space science section of your 8th grade Science textbook. This doesn't even qualify as a $200 Teen Jeopardy! question. You know, people hundreds of years ago figured this shit out without the benefit of myriad beautiful 3-D renderings of orbit patterns on Youtube. All they had were sticks, shadows, and wells they could only see the bottom of once a year! They were lucky if they had mechanical orreries and they still managed to notice when the sun was low or high in the sky and how that affected the weather!
Science teachers may not tell you that the difference between the Earth’s distance at perihelion and aphelion is negligible in the astronomical scheme of things or that the physical properties of light hitting the Earth at a reduced angle diminishes it’s intensity, but COME ON. Daylight Savings Time makes it cold in the winter? * dies *
* I’m aware of how superannuated that statement makes me sound, but doggone it, I’m shaking my fist anyway!
During the winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the Earth’s orbit brings it is closest to the sun. In the summer, Earth is farthest from the sun. Why, then, do we have cold weather in the winter and hot weather in the summer?
This was a fill-in short answer question.
One student said “I dunno.” Another said, “Daylight Savings Time.”
If they don’t know how to explain the seasons due to the(23 degree) tilt of the Earth’s axis, I don’t know what these kids are doing in Science class, but it’s certainly not paying attention.*
I know I knew about the tilt and the relation to the seasons when I was in high school. It’s only the first thing you learn about in the geology/space science section of your 8th grade Science textbook. This doesn't even qualify as a $200 Teen Jeopardy! question. You know, people hundreds of years ago figured this shit out without the benefit of myriad beautiful 3-D renderings of orbit patterns on Youtube. All they had were sticks, shadows, and wells they could only see the bottom of once a year! They were lucky if they had mechanical orreries and they still managed to notice when the sun was low or high in the sky and how that affected the weather!
Science teachers may not tell you that the difference between the Earth’s distance at perihelion and aphelion is negligible in the astronomical scheme of things or that the physical properties of light hitting the Earth at a reduced angle diminishes it’s intensity, but COME ON. Daylight Savings Time makes it cold in the winter? * dies *
* I’m aware of how superannuated that statement makes me sound, but doggone it, I’m shaking my fist anyway!
