Sun Angle 2007/2008

We are off to a great start! Just a few housekeeping things. Last year I ended up with a huge number of footnotes on the table. Most of those were because people couldn't do the observation near the 21st of the month, so I added a note telling when they actually took the reading. I decided to correct that problem by actually adding the date to the angle reading. For those of you who haven't posted yet. Do so as quickly as possible so that everyone can see your information. If you know that you can't participate, please tell me. No hard feelings. I totally understand. Also please only send the information to my e-mail address at cflindgren@comcast.net. Some of you sent it to my school address. That slows the process down. I also wasn't able to forward messages with attachments, the server must be blocking them. So please only use the comcast address. Speaking of the information, how do you know the accuracy of your answer? For the first day of fall (or spring) it's simple. Subtract your answer from 90 and you should get your latitude.

Clear Skies,

Charlie

Heritage Hall Middle School / North OKC / 9-24-07

Local noon: 1222 hrs.
Angle of sun: 50 degrees (used both protractor at ground level and protractor on
meter stick wtih plumb bob)
OKC temp: 84 F

Sunrise: 719 hrs Sunset: 1924 hrs (central standard time)
Wind: south at 16 mph
Pressure: 29.97 in. steady

We took a picture, but do not have parent permission to post yet.

Thank you for organizing this and giving us an opportunity to participate in your research.

Kay Emde
8th gr. Earth/Space Science

Labels: sept OKC

Hey everyone,
We measured yesterday and our sun angle was 50 degrees in Western NC! Will send picture later!
The kids enjoyed remeasuring today at noon.

Labels: Sun angle in western NC

Hello everyone! I'm pleased to be participating. It just so happened that my honors class fell at solar noon today. I was a bit nervous about getting permission to take the kids out, but the AP was very interested in it herself and gave us the OK. My students were VERY interested and insisted on learning how to take measurements themselves. OUr reading was 48 degrees, the temp outside was 30C and Sunrise/Sunset fell at 5:57/6:00.

I was so pleased to see my students get into this activity as strongly as they did--one even came back after school (on a Friday no less) to ask additional questions. Once we work out our internal technical issues this should hold to be a most promising learning activity. I enjoyed reading the others who have indicated that they too are virgin bloggers, it is nice to know that there are a few around. TO THE FUTURE-----

It's partly cloudy today but we're going to give it a try. First time. I was going to do it last year but it was cloudy that day too! If we don't get anything today we will do this again on Monday. I thought today was the equinox, but it's really Sunday, eh?
Thanks for all your work getting this together!
Susan Steiner
7th grade Science
Macon Middle School

"There's a breeze in the trees, and a chill on the hill." I think that's an old State of Maine phrase. Anyway, Fall arrives on Sunday. Take your first reading as close as possible to Sunday and send it to me ASAP. If you go to the data table you will see that there are almost 60 (count them 60!!!) schools doing this. That's fantastic! Please send as much information as you want, and I'll add it to your page. The minimum could be only the reading. It would be great if you could also send me the times of sunrise and sunset, length of daylight, and temperature (either C or F) when you take the reading at your local noon. In the "comments" section tell me how you took the measurements, and how you arrived at your final answer. Pictures are always welcome, but check with your school for any legal limitations to showing the faces of students. Please send your results to cflindgren@comcast.net . Any questions or problems, don't hesitate to drop me a line.

Clear Skies,

Charlie

Wow, Charles, you are incredible...thanks for the great coyote on LBJ's posting page...My kids will be thrilled to be participating. I'm thinking I may use some of the cities various schools are in for a ten days of temperature data collection exercise we are going to start in a week or so. That might be a fun tie in. We will be plotting max and min temps in various cities around the world (it is all actually just an exercise in mean, median and mode but the kids get pumped about being in different cities.) Have a great week. Vicki