Hurrah! British Summer time is on its way.
It’s official – this weekend sees the end of the Winter blues and the beginning of lighter nights.
But remember – you need to put your clocks forward by an hour.
Ok – it means losing an hour’s sleep but it does mean we can look forward to warmer days ahead.
So don’t forget to change your time this Sunday!
Officially you need to put your clock forward at 1am on Sunday March 31.
Of course you can be prepared and do this before you go to bed.
Have you ever wondered why we need to put our clocks forward once a year and backwards once a year?
Well, Germany, Austria and Hungary were the first three countries who introduced Daylight Saving Time on April 30 1916 and after a short period of time Britain followed.
There are now three time zones across Europe – Greenwich Mean Time in the UK – which moves one hour ahead in Summer time and one hour back in Winter time.
Then there is Central European Time – where countries move one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time – so France would be an hour ahead of the UK.
Then finally there is Eastern European time – where countries move two hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time – so Poland would be two hours ahead of the UK.
The main reason for changing is to make better use of daylight and energy saving.
Today, a total of 28 countries in the European Union use this system. However, 68% of countries around the world do not use it.
Advantages for adopting time to daylight are:
- Roads become safer because the sun sets later.
- It has positive effect on the economy because people have more daylight time to work .
The time changes have been used for more than 100 years in many countries but today European citizens are arguing about if they need to change the time at all.
As a result, The European Parliament has backed a proposal to stop the one-hour clock change which extends daylight hours in Summer in European Countries and asked members to decide if they want to stay summer time or winter time.
What do you think?
(Tuxtra reporting team Miro, Eliz and Nathan)
