--- title: Magnets, compasses and big Earth facts — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Magnets, compasses and big Earth facts», a lesson of the myths course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: That's just two big clouds bumping their heads, love," says Grandad, the way his own grandad told him. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/17-magnets-compasses-and-big-earth-facts/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Myths](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/) / Magnets, compasses and big Earth facts # Magnets, compasses and big Earth facts Lesson 17 of the myths course of Mova's primary school: 16 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/myths/17-magnets-compasses-and-big-earth-facts/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/17-magnets-compasses-and-big-earth-facts/0/) — That's just two big clouds bumping their heads, love," says Grandad, the way his own grandad told him. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/17-magnets-compasses-and-big-earth-facts/1/) — It's a lovely picture, and so are the others: the compass needle pointing straight at Father Christmas's house, the Earth's middle sloshing with lava like a giant soup pot, Greenland on the classroom map as big as all of Africa. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/17-magnets-compasses-and-big-earth-facts/4/) — Winter isn't cold because the Sun is far away: the Earth is actually closest to the Sun in early January! - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/17-magnets-compasses-and-big-earth-facts/5/) — Winter is cold because the Earth is tilted, so the light comes in low and slanted, spread thinly, and the days are short. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/17-magnets-compasses-and-big-earth-facts/6/) — Flat maps fool us too: you can't peel a ball flat without stretching it, so common maps stretch places near the poles, and Greenland looks enormous when Africa is really about 14 times bigger. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/17-magnets-compasses-and-big-earth-facts/7/) — When a friend clings to a story, a surprising fact or a quick look at a globe works better than "you're wrong": "Did you know we're nearer the Sun in January?" - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/17-magnets-compasses-and-big-earth-facts/8/) — A compass points to the magnetic north pole, which is in a different place from the geographic North Pole and slowly moves every year. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/17-magnets-compasses-and-big-earth-facts/9/) — Winter is colder because the Earth's tilt makes sunlight come in low and spread out and the days short; the Earth is nearest the Sun in early January. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/17-magnets-compasses-and-big-earth-facts/10/) — Volcanoes are found in cold places too, such as Iceland, Alaska and Antarctica, and Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh is an old volcano. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/17-magnets-compasses-and-big-earth-facts/11/) — The Earth's inner core is a solid ball of iron and nickel about as hot as the Sun's surface; the outer core is liquid metal. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/17-magnets-compasses-and-big-earth-facts/12/) — Lava comes from melted rock in the mantle (the deep layer of hot rock under the crust, the Earth's outer skin) and crust, not from the core. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/17-magnets-compasses-and-big-earth-facts/14/) — Common flat world maps stretch places near the poles, so Greenland looks huge; in fact Africa is about 14 times bigger than Greenland. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/17-magnets-compasses-and-big-earth-facts/15/) — The Sun has about 5 billion years of fuel left, so it will not burn out for an extremely long time. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/17-magnets-compasses-and-big-earth-facts/16/) — Clouds are made of tiny drops of liquid water or tiny ice crystals; real steam is an invisible gas, and the white "steam" above a kettle is also tiny drops. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/17-magnets-compasses-and-big-earth-facts/17/) — Thunder is the bang made when lightning heats the air extremely fast and the air expands suddenly; clouds do not bump together. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/17-magnets-compasses-and-big-earth-facts/18/) — A rainbow is a smooth spread of countless colours; Isaac Newton chose to name seven, partly to match the seven notes of a musical scale. - ← previous: [Water, deserts and the shape of the land](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/16-water-deserts-and-the-shape-of-the-land/) - next →: [Vikings, knights and the Middle Ages](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/18-vikings-knights-and-the-middle-ages/) - ↑ back to [Myths](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/myths/)