Sunlight Warms the Earth

Things feel warmer when they are in the sun; your clothes, your hair, inside a car, etc.

You might have used shade at a picnic or at a baseball game. There are many occasions where you might have tried to find shade to protect you from the sun.

You can use trees, canopies, big hats or tents for shade. Many different things can be used for shade.

The black top, metal surfaces or dark colored things heat up faster than things that are lighter colored or made of plastic or wood.

You can use a thermometer, which is a tool that measures temperature.

Popsicles melt, ice cubes melt and chocolate melts, too. When anything changes from a solid to a liquid we say it has melted.

You can move to a shady area, so that the sunlight can’t heat up the popsicle.

Sunlight heats up the surface to make it hot enough to cook an egg.

You can use a thermometer to measure the temperature of different materials over time.

Thicker things and things that are not see through are better sources of shade. For example, a curtain provides more shade than a window.

The ice cube in the box has shade. This slows down the melting process.

The Earth has many surfaces such as water, grass, sand, soil and snow.