The Summer Solstice

Today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Would you believe that each year, you travel 584 million miles?! It’s true because you are on the Earth and the Earth goes in a circular orbit around the Sun. This trip around the sun is 584 million miles! During this trip, the Earth stays in a fixed tilt. On the day of the solstice, the northern hemisphere of the Earth is tilted as close as it will be towards the sun. So, we see the sun for the longest period of time on this day.
The sun was visible from 5:41a.m. to 8:07 p.m.. That’s about 14 hours of sunlight. Six months from now, the northern hemisphere of the Earth will be tilted AWAY from the Sun in December. We will see the sun from 6:54 a.m. until 4:47 p.m., and we’ll have 10 hours of sunlight. Why is sunlight so important to us? Sunlight provides energy for every living thing on the planet. Plants use sunlight for energy to change carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and sugar. A plant is like a little factory. It takes up water in the roots and carbon dioxide through its leaves and uses the Sun to make PHOTOSYNTHESIS occur. Photosynthesis is the process that the plant uses to convert sunlight and oxygen and water into oxygen for us to breathe (hooray!) and sugars for us to eat (hooray!). Apples are sweet because of the Sun! The Sun allows our bodies to make Vitamin D. We need Vitamin D to live. So, on this day of the summer solstice, let’s give a shout out to the Sun, the flaming orb in the sky that provides us with the energy we need to survive!

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