Barbara Heilmans age 12.9 of Allentown Penn:

How do we get the seasons?

This is a very popular question. There are only four seasons.. but there are millions of questions still to be asked and answered

At the equator the sun is almost directly overhead at noon. This is true every day of the year. Not so in Allentown  Penna.Allentown is far north of the equator. There the sun will be either higher or lower in the noon sky depending upon the season. For the daily path of the sun changes with the seasons. In fact it causes our seasons.

Each day the sun rises in the east  hoops over the sky and sets in the west. For half the year its path creeps northward; Each morning it rises a little more to the northeast and sets a little more towards the northwest. Each noon sees it lower in the sky. Each day is shorter.

For the other half of the year the path of the sun creeps southward. It rises and sets a little to the south each day  It climbs a little higher each day in the noon sky and each day grows a little longer.

There are four important days in the yearly path of the sun. On December 22 the sun is as far north as it can get.  This is the shortest day of the year. The noon sun is lowest in the sky. On June‑22 the sun is as far south as it can get. This is the longest day and the noon sun is at its highest  These two days are the solstice days the days on which the sun stands still turns around and starts in the opposite direction.

March 21 and September 23 are the equinox days  when day and night are of equal length. The sun is then halfway on its journey north or south. The solstices and the equinoxes are the turning points in our seasons. The slight day by day changes are hard to notice. But  throughout the year they make the difference that brings the changing seasons.

Spring and summer creep up as the days grow longer~for more hours of sunlight are falling to warm the earth and the air above it.; Also the higher the higher the noonday sung the more directly its rays fall upon the earth. Sloping sunlight from a sun low in the sky cuts slantwise through the air. Slanting rays are longer. More heat is blocked off from the earth. Fall and winter creep up with shorter days and more sloping rays from the sun.

This changing path of the sun is really caused by the earth for the earth is tipped at an angle towards its orbit. The axis on which it spins is not at a right angle to its path around the sung As it travels around it must bow to the sun first with one poles then with the others

Our spring and summery longer days and more direct rays come while the earth is bowing to the sun with its north pole. But. south of the equator the opposite is true down there the summer comes when the south pole is bowing towards the sun. That is when we are having winter with its shorter days and those sloping rays from the sun;