Seasons Interactive

Regents of the University of California, Sepup

An interactive that illustrates the relationships between the axial tilt of the Earth, latitude, and temperature. Several data sets (including temperature, Sun-Earth distance, daylight hours) can be generated.

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Notes from our reviewers

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Instructors could use this interactive as the basis for an inquiry activity. Have students plot differences in temperature or daylight hours for a location in the Northern Hemisphere and one in the Southern Hemisphere on the same graph. Teachers should ask students to infer the seasons from these data.
This resource illustrates how the tilt of Earth's axis affects daylight hours and temperatures at four different latitudes. It explicitly shows the geometry that causes this. Comments from expert scientist: The activity correctly shows how the Earth's surface illumination changes seasonally, thus the fundamental cause of the seasons. It is helpful that it shows both a view looking into the plane of the orbit and down upon it. My concerns are more about the pedagogy than the Earth science involved. While it is appropriately labelled that the images are not to scale, and perhaps it's helpful that the relative sizes are obviously reversed, it is still a big conceptual leap to understanding the changing sun angles and the duration of daylight.
This resource provides students with an ecliptic and top view of Earth's orbit around the Sun. The resource also displays the distance between Earth and the sun for each month, which allows students to discern that Earth is closest to the sun in the dead of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. The resource provides a page of definitions and explanation of terms before students launch into their investigation. Students can change the angle of inclination of Earth's axis to see the effect of the tilt on temperature and number of daylight hours at four latitudes. Students can extract an understanding of the seasons from this information.