Science Project on “Changing Days and Nights”, Project Experiment Topics on Outer Space for Class 8, 9, 10 and 12 Students.

Changing Days and Nights

Materials Required:

1. Daily newspapers for 7 days
2. Paper and pencil

The earth’s rotation causes the Sun to rise and set everyday. This period between the sun rising and setting, is called a ‘day’. However, we hardly check, if the length of a day is always the same.

Select a newspaper that states the time of the sun’s rising and setting everyday, as also the moon rise and moon set. Make sure that you gather this paper, for a week. Now prepare a chart, which records the timings of each day. Keep calculating the length of the day in this manner and observe whether the length of the day is decreasing or increasing.

With the earth’s revolution round the sun, there will be two days in a year, when the days and nights are of the same length. This phenomena is called the ‘Equinox’. The Spring Equinox, also known as the Vernal Equinox, occurs approximately around March 20, while the Autumnal Equinox occurs around September 22. On these days, both days and nights are of 12 hours each.

Similarly, during a year, there is also a time when the length of a day is the longest and vice versa. While the shortest day is named as the Winter Solstice, the longest day is consequently known as the Summer Solstice.

The days of these occurrences vary from hemisphere to hemisphere – in the northern hemisphere, the winter solstice occurs around the 21st of December.