Seasons in Orbit
NGSS MS-ESS1-1 ยท MS-ESS2-6
Read the standards: MS-ESS1-1, MS-ESS2-6
Ride Earth around the Sun, tilt its axis, and prove it is the tilt, not the distance, that makes the seasons.
About This Interactive
What do students do?
Students ride Earth through a full year and read the instruments as they go: the date, the Earth-Sun distance, and live temperatures for both hemispheres. The evidence piles up fast. Pause in early January and the distance meter shows Earth at its closest to the Sun, in the middle of northern winter. Set the axis tilt to zero and the seasons vanish while the orbit stays exactly the same. Stretch the orbit with the tilt still at zero and both hemispheres warm and cool together. By the end, students have assembled the complete case for what really causes the seasons, and the worksheet has them write it up as an argument. A second view maps a single day of sunlight landing by latitude, and the tilt slider runs all the way to 45 degrees for finding where the midnight sun begins.
What does it cover?
NGSS MS-ESS1-1: develop and use a model of the Earth-sun-moon system to describe the cyclic pattern of seasons (this interactive models the seasons; lunar phases and eclipses are not covered). It also supports MS-ESS2-6 on the unequal heating of Earth. The orbit runs on Kepler's actual equation with Earth's real numbers. Key vocabulary: axial tilt, perihelion, aphelion, solstice, equinox.
How long does it take?
20 to 30 minutes for the quick version, or one 50 minute middle school lesson built around a class vote that gets settled by evidence.
What does it run on?
Every SciMinis interactive runs free in the browser with nothing to install and no accounts, on Chromebooks, laptops, tablets, and phones. It's fully bilingual: one tap switches the whole interactive, worksheet included, between English and Spanish.
What do teachers get?
Each interactive ships with vocabulary flashcards, a ten-question worksheet students can export as a PDF, and complete NGSS-aligned lesson plans: a 20 to 30 minute quick version and a full timed 5E lesson. The lesson plans and answer key stay behind a free teacher password, so students can't peek.