The Sun Temperature Project (Survey Based Project)

Rukmini Devi Public School, India

(Global Sun Temperature Collaborative Project)

Final Report

This is the fourth time we have participated in this project. This project gave us an opportunity to learn the concept in an interesting way.

The Earth's daily weather and climate is controlled by the balance between the amount of sunlight received by the Earth (both its surface and atmosphere) and the amount of energy emitted by the Earth into space.

 The Earth moves in two ways:

 1. It rotates on its axis, resulting in turning toward and away from the Sun, causing the cycle of night and day every 24 hours.
 2. It revolves around the Sun in the shape of an ellipse (not a perfect circle). Strangely enough, during summer in the Northern Hemisphere, the Earth is actually at the portion of the ellipse that is farther away from the Sun than the portion of the ellipse it travels around during the winter months.

The Earth is tilted on its axis so that the North Pole doesn't really face directly upward. Instead, it points toward Polaris, or the North Star. No matter how the Earth is rotating or revolving, that tilt remains approximately the same all year long. This tilt, combined with the revolution of the Earth around the Sun, is what causes different areas of the Earth to receive more or less direct sunlight throughout the year. The time of year when the Northern Hemisphere receives the most direct sunlight is summer in the Northern Hemisphere. The time of year when the Northern Hemisphere receives the least direct sunlight is winter in the Northern Hemisphere. In addition to the light being more spread out during winter months, the Earth's angle also causes the Sun's light to travel through more atmosphere. Atmosphere blocks some of the light and disperses the remaining light further.

We noted the observations in our school premises. The observations were noted systematically and step-by-step record was maintained. We were not familiar with some of the interesting facts about latitude and longitude. It was really interesting to know about them and conduction of survey was a real fun.

Our hypothesis was that “Countries near to the equator get more sunlight and have high temperature”. After analyzing the data and by plotting graphs we came to the conclusion that our hypothesis is correct.

The following 16 schools are taken for comparison

Date Submitted	School	Class	City	State/ Province	Country	Latitude      (N or S)	Longitude   (W or E)	Average Minutes of Sunlight	Average Temperature (OC)
10/27/2014	Swift Creek Elementary	Smith Homeroom	Whitakers	North Carolina	USA	36.11	-77.71	664	21
10/27/2014	Glen Rock Middle School	1st  Period	Glen Rock	NJ	USA	40.96	-74.13	649	12
10/27/2014	Glen Rock Middle School	4th Period	Glen Rock	NJ	USA	40.96	-74.13	649	12
10/27/2014	Glen Rock Middle School	5th Period	Glen Rock	NJ	USA	40.96	-74.13	649	12
10/27/2014	Glen Rock Middle School	8th Period	Glen Rock	NJ	USA	40.96	-74.13	649	12
10/27/2014	Glen Rock Middle School	9th Period	Glen Rock	NJ	USA	40.96	-74.13	649	12
10/27/2014	Bayard Elementary	Braves	Bayard	New Mexico	United States	32.80	-108.13	677	23
10/27/2014	Hesperia Middle School	6th hour	Hesperia	Michigan	USA	43.57	-86.40	643	12
10/27/2014	Hesperia Middle School	1st hour	Hesperia	Michigan	USA	43.57	-86.40	643	12
10/27/2014	Hesperia Middle School	5th hour	Hesperia	Michigan	USA	43.57	-86.40	643	11
11/2/2014	Oldfielld Middle School	Earth Science Period 2	Greenlawn	New York	United States	40.86	-73.37	652	13
11/2/2014	Oldfielld Middle School	Earth Science Period 4	Greenlawn	New York	United States	40.86	-73.37	652	14
11/2/2014	Oldfield Middle School	Period 1	Greenlawn	New York	United States	40.86	-73.37	652	14
11/2/2014	Oldfield Middle School	Period 3	Greenlawn	New York	United States	40.86	-73.37	652	13
11/2/2014	H.W. Mountz	5M	Spring Lake	NJ	USA	40.15	-74.28	659	15
11/4/2014	Rukmini Devi Public School	8	Delhi	Delhi	India	28.42	77.80	679	33

Comparative analysis of 16 schools w.r.t. Average Daylight and Latitude

Comparative analysis of 16 schools w.r.t. Average Temperature and Latitude

Comparative analysis of 16 schools w.r.t. Temperature and Latitude

From the graph of Daylight vs. Latitude and Average Temperature vs. Latitude , we observed that countries with lower latitudes receive more sunlight & thus have higher temperature than those with higher latitudes.

It was an interesting experience while working on the Global Sun Temperature Project. We certainly look forward to work on it in future.

                                   

Thanks

Global Sun Temperature Collaborative Project Group

                  Observation of the Project taken at 12:00 noon

Survey Based Project "Noon Day Project"

Introductory letter to the ciese projects (2014-15)

Introduction (About Rukmini Devi Public School)

Rukmini Devi Public School (RDPS), is one of the premier educational institutes in North-West Delhi, India, imparting quality education to children up to 10 + 2 level which helps in building strong foundation. Strong foundation means learning of skills that matters in students’ lives irrespective of the time period whether it is the 21st Century or centuries to come. Therefore development of Attitudes (A), Communication Skills (C), and Thinking Skills (T) is incorporated in the school curriculum to ‘ACT’ upon equipping the young for maneuvering future opportunities and challenges. In response to the process of globalization, RDPS has made sustained efforts to bring an international perspective to its activities. It can be substantiated by school's involvement in Multicultural Students & Staff Exchange Programmes & Collaborative Projects with the various schools in countries - UK, Germany, France, Italy, Singapore and other countries. The students under these Exchange Programmes work on different projects related to Socio- economic, Cultural, Historical, Geographical structure of the country. The “Survey Based Projects” are also undertaken by the students in which the real time data is collected, analyzed and compared with the participants all over world. The school’s “Moto” is to provide students and staff an opportunity to enrich their international understanding and awareness of sharing common values and make them better citizens of the Global Village.

Latitude: 28.70° N                                                  Longitude: 77.14° E

Hypothesis: (Noon day Project)

Earth is spinning on its own axis and it appears that with continuous spinning the circumference of earth may change. For e.g. If we think about a ball rotating on a string continuously and this would create a force that holds the ball out on the end of the string and it may flatten out slightly, bulging at the equator.

Over 2,000 years ago Eratosthenes made a remarkably accurate measurement of the earth's circumference. This project requires collaboration of students in places at different latitudes of the earth to make some simple measurements, share data, use a spreadsheet to make comparisons, and then replicate and share their results of the circumference of earth.

In this project, we will estimate the circumference of the earth, using a method developed about 2,200 years ago, by Eratosthenes,  a Greek mathematician and the librarian of the great library at Alexandria, in Egypt. We can make the calculation when the sun casts a shadow at noon in experimental places. The goal of this project is to estimate the circumference of the earth by setting up a mathematical proportion from simple measurements.

The circumference of the earth at the equator is 24,902 mi / 40,076 km. So, with our experiment we should reach to the same conclusion. Let us do the experiment and calculate its inference.

Report

We are grade 8 students from Rukmini Devi Public School, located in the capital city-Delhi of India (Latitude: 28.42° N and Longitude: 77.8° E) and doing this project as part of our subject “Collaborative Projects” in our school.

Firstly, our teacher explained us the set up and steps to measure the angle of the sun and circumference of the earth. We did our experiment on 25^th September’ 2014 which was close to the Equinox day i.e 22 September’ 2014. Equinox is the time when the sun crosses the plane of the earth's equator, making night and day of approximately equal length all over the earth. We were fortunate to have sunny sky.

We were divided into groups of four to measure the angle of the sun. Four groups, have submitted the data, which was considered as best in comparison to the actual data. Here’s the procedure and measurements taken by the four groups:

We started our experiment at 11.45 a.m.  We took a 100 cm stick and marked the shadow after every 2 minutes of interval for the first 10 minutes and then at an interval of 10 minutes till 12.45 p.m., the shadow started increasing. Then, we found the length of shortest shadow which came out to be 82.5 cm, which was cast by the stick at 12.05 p.m. Then by making right angle triangle between length of stick and shortest shadow of the stick, we measured the angle of the sun. The angle of the sun was measured to be 32.5°.

We took data from website of The Sunset Spiderman School situated in OR, U.S.A to calculate the circumference of the earth, which was done as follows:

Latitude of Delhi, India = 28.42° N

Angle of Sun measured =32.5°

Latitude of OR, USA = 45.46° N

Angle of Sun measured = 48.5°

Central angle = 48.5° – 32.5° = 16°

Number of slices needed to make a full circle by central angle = 360^o / 16^o = 22.5

The distance between these two places along a north-south line = 45.46°– 28.42° = 17.04

Now, as each angle of latitude = 111 km. Therefore, total distance between these two places along a North-South line = 17.04 x 111= 1888.11 km, which can be taken as 1888 km.

So if the length of the "slice" is about 1388 km and there are about 30 slices, then the projected circumference is 1888 x 22.5= 42,480 km.

Therefore, the circumference of the earth came out to be 42,480 km, which is about 6.2% error, since the average circumference of earth is 40,008 km.

All the four groups had the similar observations.

It was a real fun and enriching experience to measure the circumference of the earth using a method that was first used by Eratosthenes.

Through this project, we came to know that angle of sun we measured was less than the latitude of our place. As a further enhancement to the project, when we will take up this project next time, we would also find longitude by shadow measurements.

The evidence of the observations taken for The Noon Day Project is shared on the link given below:

gbartus@stevens.edu

We certainly look forward to work on it in future.

 

Thanks,

The Noon Day Collaborative Project Group

Rukmini Devi Public School

Delhi, India

Interaction Based Project with Argentina

 

Project Title

: Treasure House of Culture and Tradition

  

Aim	: To study & compare the  culture and Tradition of India with Argentina

Country

: Argentina

Coordinator

: Ms. Mariana Klokow, Teacher of English & Coordinator of International Projects

School

: "Escuela Secundaria No 2 Fray Luis Beltran", Argentina

No. of Students

: 12 students of VIII  B

Duration

: Feb.' 14 – November 14

Benefits :   

It provides students :

• An opportunity to learn, compare & contrast about the various treasures of India  with Argentina.
• A sense of appreciation of geographical diversity.
• A big platform to enrich their ACT approach.

Enthusiasm :

 a) Teacher’s Observation:

• Students are showing interest in the preparation of  Personal  and also the special topic information

 b) Student’s Feedback: Students found it very interesting as they happened to know the Culture and
                                       Tradition of  Country  Argentina and also

Participants of India  in the "Treasure house of Culture and Tradition" project are:

Religious and Traditional Values

S.No.	Roll no.	Student's Name	Epals ID	Partner's Name	Epals ID	Subtopics
1	1	Siddhant Chaudhary	cp01br@epals.com	Melisa Amarilla	01klokow@epals.com	National Fairs
2	3	Raghav Gaba	cp03br@epals.com	María Miranda	02klokow@epals.com	National Festivals
3	16	Gaurav Bansal	cp06br@epals.com	Benjamín Pianezzi	03klokow@epals.com	Museums
4	7	Dhruv Gupta	cp07br@epals.com	Aldana Amarilla	04klokow@epals.com	Important Days
5	12	Jishnu Verma	cp12br@epals.com	Nancy del Valle	05klokow@epals.com	International Fairs
6	13	Parth Chhabra	cp13br@epals.com	Florencia Lopez	06klokow@epals.com	Harvest Festivals

Fairs, Museums and Festivals

1	6	Pragya Khurana	cp16br@epals.com	Joaquín León	07klokow@epals.com	Family structure
2	20	Bhavya Sehgal	cp20br@epals.com	Esteban Osuna	08klokow@epals.com	Weddings
3	23	Navya Jain	cp23br@epals.com	Florencia Cuello	09klokow@epals.com	Types of Religion
4	35	Smriti Jindal	cp35br@epals.com	Vanesa Romero	10klokow@epals.com	Beliefs and Superstions
5	36	Shalini Bansal	cp36br@epals.com	Milagros Meza	11klokow@epals.com	Music
6	37	Navya Arora	cp37br@epals.com	Ruth Pedraza	12klokow@epals.com	Dance

Currently the introductory letter has been shared and the same has been uploaded on the blog in the form of flip book, whose link has been given below.

http://www.flipsnack.com/766F6FFEFB5/personal-information.html