Up with the sun 跟著太陽起床

How do you know when it's time to go to bed? How do you know when it's time to wake up in the morning? You have clocks to tell you that it's time to sleep, eat or go to school. But how would you tell time if you didn't have a clock?

You could use the sun. You know it's night-time when the sun sets. You know it is morning as the sun begins to rise.

But did you know that the time of sunrise and sunset changes over the year? You probably know that the earth moves around the sun, but did you know that it is tilted in different directions as it does? Because of this, sometimes the top half or the bottom half of the earth is closer to the sun. When part of the earth is farther away from the sun, in winter, the time between sunrise and sunset is shorter, so we don't have as much daylight.

The same thing is true for people who live in the southern part of the Earth. The only difference is, they have their winter while the northern half of the world has its summer. (Lynn Steger, Staff Writer)

你如何知道何時該上床睡覺？你如何知道早上何時該起床？時鐘會告訴你何時該睡覺、吃飯或上學。不過，假如你沒有時鐘，要如何分辨時間呢？

你可以利用太陽。太陽下山時，你就知道是晚上了。當太陽升起時，你就知道是早上了。

不過，你知道一年當中日出與日落的時間會改變嗎？你大概知道地球是繞著太陽旋轉，但你知道地球旋轉時是朝不同方向傾斜的嗎？正因為如此，有時候地球的北半球或南半球會比較接近太陽。

冬季時，當地球的某些地方離太陽較遠時，日出到日落之間的時間就會減短，所以我們白天的時間較短。

這對於住在南半球的人來說也是一樣。唯一的差別是，當他們是冬季時，北半球是夏季。 （翻譯︰賴美君）