Daylight Through the Year

Connect the seasons to real data with this one-page graph worksheet! Students read a bar graph of daylight hours in Austin, Texas, and explain the pattern using Earth's tilt.

The passage explains that as Earth revolves around the Sun, the number of hours of daylight changes. In the Northern Hemisphere, the longest day is around June 21, when the North Pole tilts most toward the Sun, and the shortest day is around December 21, when it tilts most away. In March and September, day and night are almost equal. Students also learn that more daylight gives the ground and air more time to warm up, which is one reason summer is hot. A wide, black and white bar graph at the top of the page shows the hours of daylight in Austin in the middle of each month, from about 10 hours in December to about 14 hours in June. In the first activity, students use the graph to circle the month with the most daylight, the month with the least, and the hours of daylight in March. In the second activity, students decide if three sentences about the graph are true or false. The sheet is written to Texas TEKS 6.9A and also fits NGSS MS-ESS1-1.

What's inside:

• A short passage with a daylight bar graph for Austin, Texas
• 3 graph reading questions
• 3 true or false sentences
• A visual answer key

How teachers use it:

• To add data and graph reading to a seasons unit
• For bell work, stations, or an exit ticket
• As homework or sub plans, with no prep needed

It takes about 10 minutes and prints clearly in black and white. This worksheet is part of our Reading in Science series on the Sun, Earth, and Moon.