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  • What time is it?

  • That's a very good question!

  • From morning until night,

  • clocks help us to plan our day.

  • They tell us when things begin and when they end.

  • Before clocks, people told time by watching the sun move across the sky.

  • They started work when the sun came up in the east.

  • At noon, when the sun was very high,

  • they ate and rested.

  • When the sun disappeared in the west, they went to bed.

  • Today, we know that the sun doesn't move around the Earth.

  • The Earth turns, or spins, on an imaginary line called an axis.

  • As the Earth turns, the sun seems to be moving across the sky.

  • The time it takes for the Earth to make one complete turn

  • is called a day.

  • A day is divided into hours, minutes, and seconds.

  • There are 24 hours in a day.

  • There are 60 minutes in an hour.

  • How many minutes are there in a day?

  • Multiply 24 hours times 60 minutes to get the answer.

  • 24 X 60=1,440.

  • There are 1,440 minutes in one day!

  • We measure time by other movements, too.

  • The Earth travels around, or orbits, the sun.

  • The time it takes for the Earth to go around the sun once is called a year.

  • One year is equal to 12 months,

  • or just over 52 weeks.

  • To be very accurate,

  • it takes the Earth 365 days, 5 hours,

  • 49 minutes, and 12 seconds to go around the sun.

  • We divide the Earth into 24 time zones.

  • Each time zone is one hour apart from the next time zone.

  • For example, when it is10:00 a.m. where you live,

  • it is 10:00 p.m. on the opposite side of the world.

  • In two hours, it will be noon where you live,

  • but on the other side of the world, it will be 12:00 at night!

  • Thanks to clocks and calendars,

  • we can measure time very easily.

  • However, it is the movement of the Earth

  • that really allows us to measure time.

What time is it?

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