Students compare properties of the sun, moon, and Earth, including temperature and composition. They find out how many heavy books a child who lifted one book on Earth could lift on the moon, and how high a child who could jump 1 meter on Earth could jump on the moon. Students learn what a day is by stepping through a 24-hour cycle, two hours at a time, while watching the sun traverse the sky from a vantage point in a Chicago park. At the same time, they see how Chicago moves on a rotating globe through the sun's light and into the shadow of night. In this investigation, students collect data and analyze a line graph of the temperature in a city in the northern hemisphere at four times of the year.
Students then find similar data for a city in the southern hemisphere.
They see the inverse temperatures in the two places and relate this data to Earth's tilt. That's what a new travel company promises. The Sleuths learn about our solar system to see if there's truth in advertising.