Daylight-saving time springs up in limited locations

By CHERYL FRANKENFIELD
Collegian Staff Writer

Although Penn State students will be changing their clocks to an extra hour ahead this weekend, not every American follows daylight-saving time.

Daylight-saving time begins at 2 a.m. Sunday, and those who adhere to daylight savings will have to add an extra hour to their time. In the fall, clocks are turned back one hour.

Locations that follow daylight-saving time are partly determined by their position on the globe, said Bob Aldrich, information officer for the California Energy Commission.

Southern regions already get a lot of sunshine, so they do not need a time change, he said. Benjamin Franklin formulated a time change idea because his home city, Philadelphia, was in a northern region and got quite dark.

"There was inconsistency around the country," Aldrich said.

The Uniform Time Act of 1966 requires states choosing to go along with the time change do so uniformly so there is minimal variation around the country.

Congress put the country on the time change to conserve resources for World War I and later during World War II, according to the energy commission's World Wide Web site (www.energy.ca.gov).

Aldrich has written about how the changing of clocks and time saves energy because less electricity is used later in the day.

Although there are benefits, states are not required by the act to observe the change.

Hawaii and Arizona do not follow the change and most of Indiana does not because of time zone reasons, Aldrich said.

Christine Meyer of Indianapolis, Ind., said she learned about the time changes in class as a child.

"We don't change our clocks at all," Meyer (graduate-speech communications) said.

During Fall Semester 1997 at Penn State, however, Meyer said she heard someone talk about turning back the clocks.

"I had no idea what they were talking about," Meyer said. "It's unusual for me."

Meyer said she would have missed classes that day if someone had not reminded her.

It was strange living in northern Indiana, near the Ohio border, because the radio stations would announce two times -- one for both states, she said.

Kristine Misola (senior-computer science) of Hawaii said she knew about the time change before coming to Penn State, but her freshman year was the first time she had to change her clocks.

This weekend Misola said she will try to go to bed an hour early, probably like others, in order to combat the lost hour.