I Literally Cannot Believe That Some Americans Don't Understand Seasons In The Southern Hemisphere

    Explaining this one more time for the seats in the back.

    Julia Willing
    by Julia Willing

    BuzzFeed Staff

    It's come to my attention of late, that there is a serious flaw in the American education system.

    FOX

    If I'm being honest, there actually seem to be quite a handful of issues, but let's not unravel that thread right now.

    I'm speaking of the recent (and, quite frankly, concerning) commentary from my American friends questioning why and how Australia is currently experiencing a different season.

    Twitter / BuzzFeed / Pexels / Via buzzfeed.com

    A handful of these comments came off the back of a recent article I posted about what summer in Australia is really like. The rest are just a snapshot of tweets from this month.

    And honestly, hand on my heart, I'm not judging the masses here — the fact that this is clearly not explained to some Americans in primary school is a perplexing revelation.

    CW / Twitter

    And maybe I'm showing my privilege here, assuming that these commenters had the same level of education I had — which I know is a luxury not afforded to all children.

    So even though it feels like a fact that doesn't need repeating, I'm going to go through this one more time for anyone who skipped the chapter about the Earth's journey around the sun.

    Brain Pop / Via giphy.com

    Here's the gist of it: The Earth is tilted, which means that as it makes a full rotation around the sun (which takes a full calendar year) either the northern or southern hemisphere is most exposed to the sun.

    The hemisphere that is facing inward on the rotation, is the one that is bathed in the glorious rays of summertime.

    What this means is that, yes, when those in the northern hemisphere are plunged into an icy winter — those of us south of the equator (such as Oz, New Zealand and South Africa) are revelling in heat.

    Pixdeluxe / Getty Images, David Silverman / Getty Images, Mark Meredith / Getty Images

    ^A snapshot of Oz, South Africa and New Zealand over Christmas.

    So in conclusion: A whole world exists outside of the United States of America. Come and see it, it's pretty nice.

    Emmys / CBS