Sun and Sundials

By Karen, Cameron, Gina and Frank

Pictures

• Here are some pictures of sundials.

http://www.2preslex.org/images/sundial0501.jpg

http://www.arar93.dsl.pipex.com/mds975/Images/sundial4.jpg

http://www.napier.govt.nz/images/imem/sundial_3.jpg

How To Use A Sundial

• Sundials show the time of day

• They do this by using the sun as a shadow to reflect off of the pointer on the dial.

• There are numbers on the sundial and the shadow points to the numbers that show the correct time.

• The pointer is really called a gnomon.

http://4hgarden.msu./kidstour/game_sundial.html

Daylight Savings Time•We did an experiment and made a human sundial. The human sundial works. The way it works is that you stand in sunlight and face north. The sun reflects off of you and makes a shadow on the ground.

•The shadow points to the correct time.

•The 12 is always in the north.

•Daylight savings time affected our results. This is because during daylight savings time we fall back one hour. So, our sundial pointed to 12 when it was 11.

We found out that most moss grows on the North side of the tree. Some moss grows on the south but mostly the north. This is because in the Northern Hemisphere the north side of trees get low light. The sun comes from the south so the southern side of trees is too light and dry for moss to grow.Moss likes low light so it tends to grow on the north side of trees.