Congratulations! You got them all right!

Do you remember which motion of Earth makes a day (24 hours) happen? And which motion of Earth makes a year (365 days) happen?

Click (or touch) anywhere to go back and review or screen capture your work.

#2. WHAT is a DAY? WHAT is a YEAR?

Earth spins one time around to make one day. Each time you have a birthday you have completed one more trip (orbit) around the Sun.

Imagine that you are the orange person in the center. The diagram shows the Sun’s path at two different times of year in the Northern Hemisphere. Trace the two paths with your fingers. Notice that in summer (red line), the Sun rises north of east (NE) and sets north of west (NW). And in winter (blue line) the Sun rises south of east (SE) and sets south of west (SW).

Image credit: PUNCH Outreach Team

Drag-and-drop fill-in-the-blanks

FITB #2. Challenge Level: Medium. Word count: 273. # Blanks: 17. Prerequisites: #1 (Where is the Sun?).

DRAG & DROP the words into the spaces in the paragraph below to FILL-IN-THE-BLANKS. NOTE: The word will only drop successfully when the cursor tip (or your fingertip on mobile devices) is within the light-colored box above the blank which will turn yellow when the word is properly positioned.
TO UNDO YOUR CHOICE click on the blue circle
next to the dropped word.

Spring southeast lowest higher fewer calendar sunrise rotating day-night cycle western year horizon 12 24 hours seasons orbit stars

Each day, the Sun appears to rise on the eastern horizon and set on the

horizon because Earth is spinning, or

, toward the east. Our planet takes

to complete one full rotation. Because Earth keeps rotating after sunset, the distant stars appear to rise and set as the Sun did during the day. A new day begins with another

, and the sky once again becomes too bright to see the other

. This cycle of daytime and nighttime is called the

How many times have you traveled around the Sun in your life so far? It takes one

(or 365 days) for Earth to go around, or

, the Sun one time. When you are 12 years old you have orbited the Sun

times, moving through the seasons of

, Summer, Fall, and Winter each year.

In summertime, the Sun rises in the northeast (NE), and its path is highest in the sky. This causes more hours of daylight and

temperatures. In wintertime, the Sun rises in the

(SE) and its path is

in the sky. This causes

hours of daylight and lower temperatures. So the Sun rises at different positions on the