Sundials

How would you keep track of time, if all of the clocks on earth suddenly disappeared? Well, 3C were about to find out! Long ago our ancient ancestors were faced with that exact problem. 

Many years ago, people noticed the difference between the dark nights and the daylight. They also realised that the sun came up over the east and went down in the west.

During the day they saw that the shadow cast by a tree, a rock, or even their own body was long early in the morning and grew shorter and shorter until it disappeared when the sun was overhead in the middle of the day. They also would have noticed that the shadow grew longer again, on the other side of the tree, as night came. 

To track this, the ancient Egyptians built tall stone towers called obelisks. Everybody could tell the time by looking at the obelisk's shadow. Obelisks were sometimes called "Cleopatra's Needles". 

People also built sundials to keep track of shadow movements. We felt as though this was the most suitable method for us to use. It didn't take us long to create our sundials using paper plates and straws. At 11.30 we took them outside and we found a spot in the sun facing north, the shadows were tracked as they moved around the clock, it was amazing!

The sundials have been sent home with children, it would be lovely to see any examples of children who have tracked their sundials through the evening too.