Spring Tides & Neap Tides

What causes tides?

Tides are caused by the gravity of both the moon and the sun “pulling” at the water in the sea. Because the Earth is constantly turning, the “pull” of gravity affects different places as each day goes on – so when the tide is “out” in your area, it is “in” somewhere else

What about the Sun?

The Sun affects the ocean tides, but the Moon plays the biggest role. Although the Sun's gravitational pull on the Earth is 178 times stronger than the Moon's, the Moon is much closer to our planet, so it has more impact on tides than the Sun. The Sun's gravitational force, DOES affect the tides, though. Just not as much as the Moon.

SPRING tides

Spring tides are a special event that happens when the Moon and Sun are BOTH lined up. This makes the gravitational pull VERY strong and the high tides are EXTREMELY high. This happens every two weeks when the moon is in the full moon phase, or new moon phase.

NEAP tides

Seven days after a spring tide, the sun and moon are at right angles to each other. When this happens, the bulge of the ocean caused by the sun partially cancels out the bulge of the ocean caused by the moon. This produces moderate tides known as neap tides, meaning that high tides are a little lower and low tides are a little higher than average. Neap tides occur during the first and third quarter moon, when the moon appears "half full."

Multiple Choice

Tides are caused mainly by what?

• Moon’s gravitational pull
• Sun’s gravitational pull
• Earth’s gravitational pull

Multiple Choice

Why does the moon's gravitational pull have more of effect on tides than the sun's gravitational pull?

• they are the same
• the moon is larger than the sun
• tides are not caused by the moon
• the moon is closer to the Earth than the sun

Multiple Choice

What type of tides would this arrangement of earth-moon-sun create?

• neap tide
• spring tide
• new moon tide
• full moon tide

Multiple Choice

What type of tide would this arrangement of earth-moon-sun create?

• full moon tide
• new moon tide
• neap tide
• spring tide

Drag and Drop

The tide in the picture is a ​

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.

During this tide, the high/low tides will be ​

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than usual.

Drag these tiles and drop them in the correct blank above

spring tide

higher and lower

neap tide

less high and less low