Original Project
Weather and Climate II: Seasonal Differences
The earth’s spherical shape causes differences in the intensity of sunlight and thus the amount of energy from…
Item CL080002: The sun is directly overhead at only one place on earth at a single moment.
A student notices that the sun is directly overhead where she lives. Where else is the sun directly overhead at that moment?
- Everywhere on the sunlit side of the earth
- Everywhere on the sunlit side of the earth that is directly east or directly west of where she lives (same line of latitude), but nowhere else
- Everywhere on the sunlit side of the earth that is directly north or directly south of where she lives (same line of longitude), but nowhere else
- Only where she lives
- Distribution of Responses
- Students Responding Correctly
| Group | Correct | Total | Percent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 461 | 2158 | 21% |
| Grades | |||
| 6–8 | 231 | 1117 | 21% |
| 9–12 | 227 | 1034 | 22% |
| Gender | |||
| Male | 256 | 1042 | 25% |
| Female | 192 | 1053 | 18% |
| Primary Language | |||
| English | 408 | 1885 | 22% |
| Other | 35 | 184 | 19% |
- Disciplinary Core Ideas
- ESS1.A Patterns of the apparent motion of the sun, the moon, and stars in the sky can be observed, described, predicted, and explained with models.
ESS1.B The orbits of Earth around the sun and of the moon around Earth, together with the rotation of Earth about an axis between its North and South poles, cause observable patterns. These include day and night; daily changes in the length and direction of shadows; and different positions of the sun, moon, and stars at different times of the day, month, and year.