Earth’s Rotation and Revolution Reader’s Theater Characters
Student Sun Summer Teacher Moon Spring Earth Winter Autumn
Earth’s Rotation and Revolution
Student: How does the sun know to go down at the end of the day?
Teacher: Actually, the sun doesn’t move. It’s the Earth that is moving.
Student: Really? I can’t feel us moving.
Teacher: That’s because we are moving smoothly and at the same speed.
Earth: That’s right! I am spinning on my axis.
Student: What is an axis?
Earth: Think of it as an imaginary line that passes through my North and South Poles. I am constantly spinning on the axis. This is called rotating.
Student: Is that like when I spin in a circle?
Earth: Exactly!
Sun: When the Earth rotates on its axis, half of it is facing the sun and the other half is facing away from the sun. The half that faces the sun gets light and this makes the daytime. The other half that is facing away from the sun gets no light. This is nighttime.
Student: So someone in London might see the sun while someone else in Honolulu will still be in the dark?
Sun: This is true because of the Earth’s rotation. The spinning makes it look like I am moving from East to West.
Student: Yes, it looks as though the sun moves in the sky from the right to the left. Sun: I always rise in the East and set in the West.
Teacher: It takes 24 hours for the earth to complete one rotation.
Earth: This means I complete one full spin each day.
Sun: Without rotation, one side of the earth would never receive light.
Student: But I thought the moon gave off light. It always looks so bright!
Moon: It may look like I am providing light, but I am really just reflecting the light from the sun onto the earth. That’s why sometimes only part of me is lit up.
Teacher: That’s the lunar cycle. The moon revolves around the earth in stages.
Student: What does it mean to revolve?
Teacher: Revolve means to circle around something. The moon revolves around the Earth and the Earth revolves around the sun.
Earth: I am making one an entire circle around the sun every year. It takes me 365 days to do this because it is such a long journey.
Teacher: Do you know what the earth’s revolution causes?
Summer: The seasons! The seasons are caused because of Earth’s axis, that imaginary line form the North to the South Poles, is a bit tilted.
Spring: It is tilted 23.5° to be exact. This means that the earth is always pointing to one side as it revolves around the sun.
Autumn: Sometimes the North Pole is pointing toward the Sun and sometimes it’s not. The different amount of sunlight parts of the earth receives during the year creates the seasons. Winter: Let’s think about what happens in the winter. The Northern Hemisphere is not pointing toward the sun and will have winter because it is not getting as much heat and light from the sun. This causes longer nights and shorter days.
Spring: As the earth revolves around the sun, the North Pole begins to point more toward the sun and the northern hemisphere gets a bit more heat and light. This causes springtime.
Summer: We get summer when the Northern Hemisphere is leaning most toward the sun. This means more heat and light leading to longer days and shorter nights.
Autumn: Once the North Pole starts moving away from the Sun, the Northern Hemisphere starts getting less heat and light. This is the autumn season.
Winter: The Earth eventually complete ones full revolution and we are back to winter.
Student: So does that mean that people in the Northern Hemisphere have summer while people in the Southern Hemisphere have winter?
Teacher: That’s right! It’s all because the earth is tilted on its axis! Clipart Credit