Saturday, November 2, 2013

Daylight Savings Explanation

In a few hours most Americans will set their clocks back thanks to a 1918 law which suggests, but does not require the change.  In fact not all states, nor countries are on daylight savings time.  It is a concept that harkens back to Ben Franklin, but did not come into use here for nearly two hundred years to give us more time and conserve energy.  This is a fascinating article from National Geographic which gives you more details.

Above is a very good video explaining the phenomena which it does in the first two minutes before going into more discussion which you may or may not want to use in the classroom - although it will promote great discussion. 

1 comment:

Sweedie-The-Cat said...

Good explan.

But the whole idea is silly, as you never gain an hour. You DO lose 2 each year, though, playing with clocks....

Then again, why don't we get sensible and set the clocks ahead or back 1/2 hour and leave them there, getting the best of both worlds?

What worries me is the effect on people Monday morning. And apparently airplane pilots and bus drivers have problems with it. And when you "fall back", school buses are on icier, less well lit, less well tended, roads, earlier. Someone said that was bad. (I do not recall where I read this.)

We should start a petition to stop this nonsense. I know a barkeep with 50+ clocks in his business. Some are old beer ad clocks that are 40+ years old. Some are mounted high on the wall. Each year this takes a toll on the clocks, and him, and about 3 hours, twice a year....

Good video! Thanks!