The Global Sun/Temperature Project

Overview

---

The purpose of this project is to see how average daily temperature and hours of sunlight are affected by how close you are to the equator.  Each school will submit their average outdoor temperature, their average number of minutes of sunlight per day for the week of April 29 -  May 3, 2002 and their school's latitude and longitude to the project web site.  By analyzing this data gathered from around the world together, students will then be able to see if there is a relationship between temperature, sunlight and proximity to the equator.

How to Do the Science Experiment

---

1. Measure the temperature outside your school each day for 5 days straight starting Monday, October 29 to Friday,  November 2.  In order to standardize the data collected from around the world, you must:
• Measure the temperature between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.
• Measure the temperature in the shade
• Record the temperature each day in degrees Celsius.

Note: This conversion calculator will convert degrees Fahrenheit to Celsius.
2. For each of the 5 days, determine the number of minutes of sunlight per day. This can be done by recording the sunrise and sunset times for each day and then calculating the number of minutes of sunlight between sunrise and sunset. Sunrise and sunset times can be found here or in a local newspaper.

 
3. After the temperatures and number of minutes of sunlight have been recorded for each day, determine the average temperature for the week (rounded to the nearest tenth, e.g. 23.1 or 25.0) and the average minutes of sunlight per day for the week (rounded to the nearest minute, e.g. 423 minutes).

 
4. If more than one class from a school participates in this project, please average all of the data collected by the classes and submit only one set of data per school.

 
5. Return to the Project Timeline, #5

 

Project Home Page