The Science of Spring – Answer Sheet

Directions: If you were not in class when we completed this assignment, please use pages 4-10 of this packet to complete pages 1-3 and then hand in pages 1-3! Complete any FOUR stations.

Your name __________________________________

Station 1:

Your task:

1. Read the article “The Equinoxes and the Solstices.”

Q: What is the relationship between the Earth and the Sun on the spring equinox?

Station 2:

Your task:

1. Read the articles “Climate Change brings earlier Spring” and “Looking to Nature for Clues.”Q1: What is the problem?

Q2: What is the cause of the problem?

Station 3 – EggsYour task:

1. Read the article “Eggs, Brooms, and Spring Cleaning.”

2. Try to balance an egg. Email me a photo of you and your balanced egg.

Station 4:

Your task:

1. Read the article “Earth Day – The History of a Movement.”Q1: In paragraph 3, the article says that Silent Spring was a “watershed movement.” What does the author mean by that?

Q2: When was the first Earth Day? What events were there?

Q3: How was Earth Day 2000 different from the first Earth Day?

Q4: Would you be interested in participating in Earth Day events? Why or why not?

Station 5:

Your task:

1. Use a computer to answer the questions on the Answer Sheet related to Station 5.Q1: When is hurricane season?

Q2: Research emergency preparedness for hurricanes. Describe and explain 5 actions that can be taken to protect citizens and communities from harm.

Station 1: The Equinoxes and Solstices

We experience seasons because Earth rotates on an axis that's tilted in its orbit. The 23.5-degree tilt causes different hemispheres to be at different angles to the sun at different times of year. Because the sun is our source of light, energy and heat, the changing intensity and concentration of its rays give rise to the seasons of spring and summer, fall and winter.

During winter, the energy from the sun must travel through more atmosphere to reach the poles. Also, a given amount of the sun's energy is spread over a larger area. The seasonal turning points for the Northern Hemisphere are in the diagram to the right.

Solstices and equinoxes

The seasons are marked by solstices and equinoxes — astronomical terms that relate to Earth’s tilt.

The solstices mark the points at which the poles are tilted at their maximum toward or away from the sun. This is when the difference between the daylight hours and the nighttime hours is most acute. The solstices occur each year on June 20 or 21 and Dec. 21 or 22, and represent the official start of the summer and winter seasons.

These views of Earth from a satellite in space show the terminator line on Dec. 21, 2010 (upper left), March 20, 2011 (upper right), June 21, 2011 (lower left) and Sept. 20, 2010 (lower right). The sequence illustrates how Earth's northern half receives more sunlight in June, while the southern half gets more light in December.

The vernal equinox and autumnal equinox herald the beginning of spring and fall, respectively. At these times of the year, the sun appears to be directly over Earth’s equator, and the lengths of the day and the night are equal over most of the planet.

On March 20 or 21 of each year, the Northern Hemisphere reaches the vernal equinox and enjoys the signs of spring. At the same time, the winds turn colder in the Southern Hemisphere as the autumnal equinox sets in. The year's other equinox occurs on Sept. 22 or 23, when summer fades to fall in the north, and winter’s chill starts giving way to spring in the south.

From year to year, there is always some variability in the equinoxes and solstices because of the way Earth's changing tilt matches up with its orbit around the sun. This year, the precise moment of the March equinox came at 7:02 a.m. ET Dec. 21. That's the moment when the sun is exactly overhead, as seen from the point on Earth's equator directly facing the sun at that time.

The spring equinox and fall equinox are the days that comes the closest to offering equal amounts of sunlight and darkness all over the globe.  

Climate change brings earlier springRon Edmonds  /  AP file

Judging by the tilt of Earth's axis, spring officially arrives in the Northern Hemisphere on March 20. But judging by biological clocks — when plants bloom, critters wake and birds sing — spring is arriving days to weeks earlier than it did just a few decades ago. For example, the famous cherry trees in Washington bloom about five days earlier than they did 30 years ago, scientists say. The reason? Climate change, of course.

Songbirds are in a much greater rush to migrate back to North America each spring from their South American wintering grounds than previously thought, according to scientists who outfitted critters such as the wood thrush shown here with tiny electronic backpacks. The gadgets recorded the

birds' whereabouts for an entire migration cycle. Overall, the birds flew much quicker than expected, covering an average of 311 miles per day, compared with previous estimates of 93 miles per day. The biggest surprise was how quickly the birds returned to North America. Their trip was two to six times more rapid than their flight south. One bird, for example, flew to Brazil in 43 days, but returned in just 13 days. The quick flight may be related to a race to secure the best real estate for nesting.

Looking to Nature for CluesDominick Reuter for The Wall Street Journal

Botanist Richard Primack, a professor at Boston University, inspects a witch-hazel shrub at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston on a recent day.

To chart the advent of spring, thousands of volunteer naturalists are logging when cherry trees and lilacs first blossom, when Monarch butterflies and hummingbirds fly north, when insects stir and robins nest.

Taken together, their backyard observations record how plants and animals across North America are responding to long-term temperature changes that, according to the U.S. National Climatic Data Center, have meant earlier springs than in past decades. Indeed, the annual growing season in much of the U.S. is two weeks longer now than a century ago, federal records show.

"The last frost comes earlier and earlier," said ecologist Jake F. Weltzin, executive director of the USA National Phenology Network in Tucson, Ariz. Phenology is the study of the timing of natural events. "The first frost in fall comes later and later."

Among nature's most sensitive climate sensors are flowering plants. So far, laboratory experiments meant to measure how plants will respond to warmer temperatures in the future haven't worked well, and computer models to forecast regional climate effects have fared no better, NASA and university researchers recently concluded.

Researchers must instead rely on gardeners, farmers, bird watchers and other amateur naturalists to document how plants and animals respond to shifts in annual cycles of frost and thaw—one plant, one bird, one animal at a time.

To enlist an army of observers, the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Science Foundation set up the National Phenology Network in 2007. This year, the network has more than 2,000 people tracking variations among 600 species of plants and animals in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. So far, the group has logged almost two million data points through a public online program called Nature's Notebook and hopes to add an additional million observations this year.

The scientists are finding signs of change. Researchers at Clemson University in South Carolina and Taylor University in Indiana earlier this year analyzed records of bird sightings dating to 1880 and discovered that ruby-throated hummingbirds are migrating to North America as many as 18 days earlier than decades ago.

"We are starting to see dramatic effects across the country and the National Phenology Network is helping to document that," said botanist Richard Primack at Boston University, who studies seasonal changes in New England.

In fact, flowers in Massachusetts bloomed earlier last spring—in April—than at any time in 161 years of local record-keeping, Dr. Primack reported in the science journal PLoS One. The normal time for first flowers in 1852 were May 15, records show.

Station 3: Eggs, Brooms, and Spring CleaningSpring has officially arrived at 7:02 this morning!

The spring equinox and the autumnal equinox are the only two times in the year when the sun rises exactly in the east and sets exactly in the west. They are also the only days in the year when the sun moves directly along the equator. Some people think that the equinox is a day of equal light and dark but that’s not always the case. Times of sunset and sunrise vary with location on Earth, so the actual day when a person has equal light and dark varies with location.

In Wiltshire, home of Stonehenge, it was traditional to drink dandelion and burdock cocktails at the equinox to help cleanse the mind and body after the long winter’s work. Just as it’s important to clean the mind and body, many cultures consider the spring equinox the perfect time for spring cleaning of the home.

You may have heard of the claim that you can balance an egg or a broom on its side at the spring equinox and at the autumnal equinox. Here are photos so that you can see that it’s absolutely true!

What you may not have heard is that it’s true every day of the year.

The gravitational pull on the equinox is no different than any other day of the year, and balancing an egg, or a broom, is equally difficult, or easy, every day of the year. Don’t take my word for it – try it for yourself today and then again in a month or two!

Egg photo by James Jordan

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesjordan/with/2347043896/#photo_2347043896)

Broom photo by KY Ducks (http://www.flickr.com/photos/teamtiredfeet/6800855840/)

Earth Day: The History of A MovementEach year, Earth Day -- April 22 -- marks the anniversary of what many consider the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970.

The height of hippie and flower-child culture in the United States, 1970 brought the death of Jimi Hendrix, the last Beatles album, and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water”. Protest was the order of the day, but saving the planet was not the cause. War raged in Vietnam, and students nationwide increasingly opposed it.

At the time, Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8 sedans. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. “Environment” was a word that appeared more often in spelling bees than on the evening news.  Although mainstream America remained oblivious to environmental concerns, the stage had been set for change by the publication of Rachel Carson's New York Times bestseller Silent Spring in 1962.  The book represented a watershed moment for the modern environmental movement, selling more than 500,000 copies in 24 countries and, up until that moment, more than any other person, Ms. Carson raised public awareness and concern for living organisms, the environment and public health.

Earth Day 1970 capitalized on the emerging consciousness, channeling the energy of the anti-war protest movement and putting environmental concerns front and center. 

The idea came to Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, after witnessing the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. Inspired by the student anti-war movement, he realized that if he could infuse that energy with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution, it would force environmental protection onto the national political agenda. Senator Nelson announced the idea for a “national teach-in on the environment” to the national media; persuaded Pete McCloskey, a conservation-minded Republican Congressman, to serve as his co-chair; and recruited Denis Hayes as national coordinator. Hayes built a national staff of 85 to promote events across the land.

As a result, on the 22nd of April, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies. Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment. Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values.

Earth Day 1970 achieved a rare political alignment, enlisting support from Republicans and Democrats, rich and poor, city slickers and farmers, tycoons and labor leaders. The first Earth Day led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts. "It was a gamble," Gaylord recalled, "but it worked."

As 1990 approached, a group of environmental leaders asked Denis Hayes to organize another big campaign. This time, Earth Day went global, mobilizing 200 million people in 141 countries and lifting environmental issues onto the world stage. Earth Day 1990 gave a huge boost to recycling efforts worldwide and helped pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. It also prompted President Bill Clinton to award Senator Nelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1995) -- the highest honor given to civilians in the United States -- for his role as Earth Day founder.

As the millennium approached, Hayes agreed to spearhead another campaign, this time focused on global warming and a push for clean energy. With 5,000 environmental groups in a record 184 countries reaching out to hundreds of millions of people, Earth Day 2000 combined the big-picture feistiness of the first Earth Day with the international grassroots activism of Earth Day 1990. It used the Internet to organize activists, but also featured a talking drum chain that traveled from village to

village in Gabon, Africa, and hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Earth Day 2000 sent world leaders the loud and clear message that citizens around the world wanted quick and decisive action on clean energy.

Much like 1970, Earth Day 2010 came at a time of great challenge for the environmental community. Climate change deniers, well-funded oil lobbyists, reticent politicians, a disinterested public, and a divided environmental community all contributed to a strong narrative that overshadowed the cause of progress and change. In spite of the challenge, for its 40th anniversary, Earth Day Network reestablished Earth Day as a powerful focal point around which people could demonstrate their commitment. Earth Day Network brought 225,000 people to the National Mall for a Climate Rally, amassed 40 million environmental service actions toward its 2012 goal of A Billion Acts of Green®, launched an international, 1-million tree planting initiative with Avatar director James Cameron and tripled its online base to over 900,000 community members.

The fight for a clean environment continues in a climate of increasing urgency, as the ravages of climate change become more manifest every day. We invite you to be a part of Earth Day and help write many more victories and successes into our history. Discover energy you didn't even know you had. Feel it rumble through the grassroots under your feet and the technology at your fingertips. Channel it into building a clean, healthy, diverse world for generations to come.