Saturday, March 7, 2015

Daylight Saving & Farmers

As long as we are talking farmers, one myth which I've wrongfully perpetuated is that farmers are the reason we end standard time (which is between the fall and spring) and go on daylight savings time.  The practice was started in England in 1907 and it made it to the US in WWI ostensibly to save energy so we could be awake more during daylight.  In case you want to share it with your students, here is a WashPost article and here is another one from National Geographic

4 comments:

williamskristinaedm310 said...

Mr. Halla,
I had no clue that daylight savings started in England. I think this post in very interesting because not many people know where daylight savings originated from. I also didn't know that it made its way over to the US in WW1. How interesting!

boonec1974 said...

It's interesting the things that seem like they've probably with us time eternal that are actually, relatively recent. It always really blows my students' minds when I talk about how many different "time zones" there were before trains.

Brittni said...

I was not aware how recent daylight savings time was in our history until reading your post. Being from a farm town I too thought daylight savings had to do with farming.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Halla,

I grew up on a farm and I was always under the impression that Daylight savings was for the farmers. In the summertime I believed this was true, but after reading your post I'm now aware that I was wrong.

BW