* If the first thing you do when you wake up is look toward your window, you probably have noticed that lately it’s still dark outside. Due to the way our Earth orbits around our Sun, the light from that Sun hits the earth in different ways throughout the year. Rather than going into detail about how and why that happens (another blog post another time), we want to talk to you about a funny thing you may observe this year on November 4th (and every year around this time).
Your parents (and may you too) will move around the house, setting all of the clocks back one hour. Our computers and other gadgets that receive updates from the internet will receive their queue to update their time too! And then a really strange thing will happen: You’ll likely sleep in an hour later the next day, but wake up at the same time! AND it will be lighter out than the morning before! The weirdest part – when your parents come home from work, all of the sudden they arrive AT NIGHT!
How does this happen all at once? Sure, the clocks moved back, but this is a BIG CHANGE, right? Actually, no. The days have been getting shorter for weeks now, as you may have noticed in the morning. But it’s not as obvious when you get out of school, since the sun is still setting.
We found an amazing graph on timeanddate.com, which illustrates times of sunlight and darkness for Baltimore and the surrounding area throughout the year. There are breaks in the line appearing on days when Daylight Saving Time starts and ends. The graph illustrates how the small adjustment to our clocks on those days changes our perception of what is actually going on. The big change we see the next day has been occurring gradually since the last day of summer. Even more amazing – the amounts of light we receive changes daily over the span of ~365 days a year. There are exceptions to this rule - can you guess where this DOESN'T happen?*
So here’s where we ask our Scientists to use their observation skills to do a small experiment:
Have more questions about Daylight Saving Time, and the history behind it? Great! It's always good to be curious, especially of things we take for granted. We recommend this article from History.com to help you start your research.
*did you guess places located on the Earth's equator? If so, well done! Check out this Sun Graph for Quito, a city in Ecuador - it looks a LOT different from the one for Baltimore! Also notice they don't have the bumps for Daylight Savings - because there's no Daylight Savings in Ecuador!
We're at Day 4!
Not much has changed for our pumpkins, but there's been a lot of change in the world around them. Introducing, new VARIABLES!
It's important to consider these variables, because temperature and moisture effect rotting. If you could ask your refrigerator, it would agree! Cooler temperatures keep the food in your fridge from rotting - but too much moisture can cause mold, which aids in rot.
Are there any other variables you can think of that we're missing? Let us know in the comments!
So here's a few pics of how our friends are looking:
We'll check in again when we see more activity! Stay tuned!
Can your Jack-O-Lantern Last Longer? Part 1
Our Pumpkins made it to Halloween, but then... Part 3
Whether you’re heading to a patch or the store, the time is right for getting your Halloween Pumpkins. But how long will that pumpkin last after it’s carved? No one wants a rotten pumpkin on their stoop or windowsill (although sometimes they can look amazingly creepy).
We did a bit of research and found a bunch of suggestions on the internet for pumpkin prep that should keep our jack-o-lanterns from falling in on themselves...at least for a bit longer than expected. A popular suggestion is to dunk the pumpkin in a bleach-water solution (theory: bleach kills bacteria/mold). Others recommended applying petroleum jelly to the carved parts (theory: applying the jelly will prevent mold growth and drying), so we’ll give that a shot too. The last will be cooking oil, also rubbed on the pumpkin (theory: oil keeps the pumpkin from drying out).
As scientists, we love to test theories. And as Science Guys, we love to make it Fun, Cool and Easy! SO we’ll be carving 4 pumpkins (a control with nothing done to it, and one for each “preservation” method) and documenting how they look from the date of carving until Halloween. Keep an eye on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for our updates. Hopefully we’ll be closer to our conclusion before you carve your pumpkin this year!
DAY 1: Meet our Pumpkins!
Thank you to Brownie Troop #11016 out of Locust Point, who helped us clean and carve our pumpkins last night! "Harry Potter" soaked in bleach water for about an hour, "The Kitty Cat" was slathered in Petroleum Jelly, and "The Puppy Dog" got a nice bath in Vegetable Oil. Our "Frankenstein's Son" pumpkin is our control, so we did nothing but carve it.
Which Jack-o-lantern do YOU think will last longest?
What if we told you that a leaf has been the color it’s changing into all along?
Trees receive nourishment from the sun through chlorophyll, a compound that is responsible for converting sunlight into food, and also responsible for a leaf’s green coloring. But chlorophyll isn’t a stable compound – it requires sunshine and warm temperatures to function. As the days get shorter, chlorophyll breaks down. The green fades to reveal other new pigments within the leaves – pigments that were actually present in leaf cells during the growing season! But during the spring and summer, the color of the chlorophyll keeps those colors under wraps.
When we have a dry late-summer and sunny fall days with cool nights, those "new" colors reveal themselves in spectacular fashion. We’ve seen a lot of rain this summer, so the experience of brilliant fall foliage may have to wait until next year in the Mid-Atlantic. But maybe we’re wrong – we’ll be keeping an eye on the local foliage this fall and hope you will be too.