What?!? No mention of balancing of eggs on the equinox? :) Actually I'm scheduled to join several people from channel 13 on their 11:30 am newscast tomorrow to try balancing eggs. Ought to be fun. Hopefully I'll also have time to talk about the real facts of equinox. Patrick Canopus56 wrote:
Some other tips for spring equinox science demonstrations:
At the equinoxes, the Sun rises and sets at azimuth 90 degrees (due East) and 270 degrees ( due West). Using an accurately aligned east-west edge of a building, or two stakes driven in the ground, that the sun sets at due west can be illustrated.
Your magnetic declination ( the degrees you subtract or add to a compass heading to find the geographic direction, can be estimated from magnetic declination maps at this web site << http://disitron.com/freeresources/ >> )
Another demonstration that can be done on the equinox uses a gnomon, a single stick driven in the ground. Or you can use any existing feature, like a basketball backboard, a street lamp or a flag pole.
The equinoxes are the only day of the year that the shadow cast by a gnomon moves in a straight east-west line. Have students go out at one or two hour intervals and mark the location of the shadow of the top of the gnomon on the ground with chalk. The line traced by the shadow will be a straight east-west line. If repeated in few weeks, the line traced by the gnomon's shadow will be curved.
- Canopus56(Kurt)