It’s About Time….To Make A Sundial!
Summary
Introduction
Have you ever watched an old movie, and when a character asks what time it is the other characters all look at the sky, instead of checking their watches, or their cell phones? There’s no giant digital clock in the sky, those characters are using the position of the Sun in the sky to tell time, as people have done for generations.
The oldest known instruments for telling time, the sundial, allow us to track the position of the sun more accurately. Up until the early 19th century, sundials were the main instrument that people used to tell time. If they are correctly placed, sundials can be used to accurately tell time, down to the minute!
In this activity you will be making your own sundial, and using your body to track the movement of the Sun across our sky!
Background
For millennia, people have used sundials to tell the time of day, based on the apparent position of the Sun in the sky. There are many types of sundials, but in general each consists of a gnomon, a thin rod that casts a shadow onto a dial, a flat plate or platform. The apparent movement of the Sun across our sky is the result of the Earth’s rotation on its axis. As the Earth spins, the Sun appears to move across our sky – but really we’re the ones who are moving!
As the Sun’s position changes in our sky, the shadow it casts will align with lines marking each hour, indicating the time of day. The accuracy of a sundial is affected by a number of factors, including the fact that the angle of the Earth’s rotation isn’t perfectly perpendicular, and the Earth isn’t perfectly round. As a result, corrections have to made to sundials to account for these changes.
For today’s activity we’ll be making a simple sundial (using a clock to help us!), as well as tracking the position of the sun by observing our shadows.
Materials
- Sidewalk chalk
- Tape measure or yardstick
- Pen or pencil
- Large concrete space with no shadows
- An adult helper
- A clock
- A paper plate
- A plastic straw
- A ruler
- Markers or crayons
- Paperweight or a few small stones
- Sunny weather!
Preparation
- This activity works best if you start early in the day so you have a few hours of daylight to do your testing. We recommend starting at 9am and going until at least noon, or starting at noon and testing until at least 3pm.
Instructions
Part 1
*This is a two-person activity, so be sure to ask a friend or parent for help!
- Start by choosing a place where you will always stand during this activity. Make sure it is in the middle of the open concrete space, with no shadows nearby. Mark this space by using your chalk to outline your shoes.
- Stand in your chosen spot, and have your helper use the sidewalk chalk to trace the outline of your shadow on the concrete.
- Use your chalk to write the time at the top of your shadow.
- Repeat Steps 2-3 every 30 minutes, each time marking the time of day at the top of your shadow.
Part 2
*This part of the activity works best if you start close to noon.
- While you are waiting to trace your shadow, use a pencil or pen to carefully poke a hole through the center of your paper plate.
- Check the time. Round up to the nearest hour, and write this number at the very edge of your plate with a crayon or marker. For example, if the clock says 9:45am, write ‘10’ on the plate. Use your ruler to draw a straight line from the number you wrote to the hole in the center of the plate.
- Wait until the clock reads the hour that you wrote before proceeding to the next step (in the example from Step 6, you would wait 15 minutes until the clock reads 10:00am).
- Take your plate and plastic straw outside. Put the plate on the ground and poke the straw through the hole you made. Slant the straw slightly toward the line you drew.
- Carefully rotate the plate so that the shadow of the straw lines up with the line you drew. Do you think the shadow will stay in the same place all day? Why or why not?
- Place the paperweight or stones on the very edges of the plate to hold it in place.
- Every hour, check your sundial and the position of the shadow on your plate. If you started at 10am, note the position of the shadow at 11am and write ‘11’ on the edge of the plate where this shadow falls. Each time you check the sundial, write the hour on the edge of the plate where the shadow falls. Why do think the shadow is moving? What does your sundial remind you of?
- After several hours of tracing your shadow, observe the positions of each tracing. Did your shadow move during the day? What else changed about your shadow with each tracing? What do you think caused these changes?
Observations and Results
In this activity you observed the movement and changes in shadows over the course of the day. In the case of your own shadow, the pattern you noticed depends on the time of day that you started. If you started this activity in the morning, you should have observed that your shadow started out long, and by the middle of the day it looked much shorter. If you started in the middle of the day you noticed the opposite, your shadow started off shorter, and grew longer over the course of the afternoon. However, regardless of when you started, you should have noticed that the position of your shadow changed over time. As it got later, your shadow moved in a clockwise direction from the first outline you drew (as long as you were completing this activity in the Northern-hemisphere!).
For your sundial, you should have noticed something similar. At each hour, the shadow of the straw was in a different position, each time moving clockwise from the start position. After a few hours, you should have noticed that the sundial looks like the face of a clock, with the numbers evenly spaced out around the plate.
The reason for your shadow’s change in shape and position have to do with the earth’s rotation on its axis. As the Earth spins, the Sun appears to move across our sky. The Sun is highest in the sky at noon or midday, and at this point it casts its shortest shadow, because it is directly above us in the sky. In the morning and later in the afternoon, the Sun is off-center, and therefore casts a longer shadow.
The position of the shadow also changes as the Sun appears to move across our sky. You can see something similar if you shine a flashlight on your hand, and then move the flashlight. As you move the light, the position of your hand’s shadow will change with the movement of the flashlight. The position of the Sun in our sky is dictated by the speed of the Earth’s rotation – the Earth rotates on its axis at a speed of 460 meters/second, or approximately 1,000 miles/hour! When the Earth rotates 15 degrees on its axis, its just as though the Sun has moved 15 degrees across our sky. As a result of this movement, (and depending on where you live) the shadow cast by the sun moves approximately 30 degrees each hour, so that over the course of 12 hours, it travels a full 360 degrees around your sundial.
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Additional Resources
- A Matter of Time, from Science Buddies
- Build a Water Clock to Show the Drip, Drip, Drip of Time, from Science Buddies
- Changing Constellations, from Science Buddies
- Science Activities for All Ages!, from Science Buddies
