GIFSL*: 24. World Time Clocks

A long time ago, when the world was young, somewhere I saw the idea for having some clocks in the library with world time on them.  So I bought some inexpensive clocks, and they went up on the wall - they've been there for several years.  When we painted the internal foyer, the clocks went back up on the wall.

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The places underneath vary, we change them from time to time.  The basic plan is to have a place from North or South America, one from Europe, and one from Asia, to show the variation in time around the globe.  It's a bit geography, a bit world citizen, a bit, something to see in the library.  Opposite these is the library clock with OUR time on it.  We've had some interesting conversations about day/night and times in places, with the kids.

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Recently, at Lisa's high school library, I saw her take on this.  She'd seen ours, and went back to her library with her own spin on the idea, including this:

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Lisa added a map, and the time difference.  Clever!  It's great to watch an idea evolving, as people pick it up and make it their own.  Ian's done the clock thing too, in his primary school library - read more on his blog here.

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What you need: three clocks (or more) - and they don't need to cost much, Ikea or two dollar shops or discount department stores have them for under $10 each.  Some idea of the places you're going to highlight.  Batteries.  Oh, and a memory, so you change the time when daylight saving starts/finishes, if you have daylight saving in your part of the world... There are plenty of easy world time websites to check for correct times.

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Cheers, Ruth

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GIFSL = Good Ideas For School Libraries
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