{"id":8478,"date":"2018-11-30T11:46:02","date_gmt":"2018-11-30T16:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/?p=8478"},"modified":"2018-11-30T11:48:07","modified_gmt":"2018-11-30T16:48:07","slug":"december-classroom-calendar-northern-lights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/december-classroom-calendar-northern-lights","title":{"rendered":"Our December classroom calendar: The Northern Lights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Explorica is very proud of our new resource for teachers: our 2018-19 Around the World classroom calendar!<\/span><\/p>\n

The calendar features a new country and an international holiday or event for you to celebrate with your students each month. <\/span>Download<\/span><\/a> a new page each month on this blog (and <\/span>subscribe<\/span><\/a>!), hang it up in your classroom, and talk to your students about how the holiday reflects the country\u2019s history and culture.<\/span><\/p>\n

This December, we\u2019re featuring the Northern Lights. The Northern Lights, or aurora borealis, is a striking natural phenomenon where colors appear in the earth\u2019s atmosphere. The lights are best viewed in northern countries like Iceland between the months of September and March, when long periods of darkness\u2014the longest being December 21, the winter solstice\u2014allow for optimal viewing.<\/span><\/p>\n

December 21 is the winter solstice because it\u2019s the day the north pole will be at its furthest from the sun. That means countries closer to the north pole will have the least sunlight. For example, Reykjavik, Iceland will have four hours, 17 minutes of daylight, and Bodo, Norway will have less than an hour of daylight. <\/span><\/p>\n

Both the aurora and the winter solstice have long been significant for cultures around the world. For example, some aboriginal traditions in Australia say that the auroras are fires lit by spirits in the sky. In Iran, where it\u2019s called \u201cYalda Night,\u201d the winter solstice is celebrated with food and drink and reading poetry. <\/span><\/p>\n

Questions to ask your students:<\/b><\/p>\n

Why are days longer in the summer and shorter in the winter? <\/span><\/p>\n

How is this affected by where you are on earth? <\/span><\/p>\n

When and where is the next winter solstice?<\/span><\/p>\n

Why do you think the winter solstice have a significance for different cultures? What about the aurora? <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Explorica is very proud of our new resource for teachers: our 2018-19 Around the World classroom calendar! The calendar features a new country and an international holiday or event for you to celebrate with your students each month. Download a new page each month on this blog (and subscribe!), hang it up in your classroom, Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-explorica-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8479,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8478\/revisions\/8479"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}