Why do we put our clocks forwards an hour?

Question

Why do we, each year, put our clocks forward an hour, then back an hour??

Can someone please tell me why???!!

Answer 1

as the earth revolves around the sun, the angle of the suns rays changes and dawn gets out of synch with the sun.

having sunrise coincide with certain clock times on average, saves energy expenditures. so we move the clock to match the sun.

Answer 2

In the winter it is usually dark when we get up and dark when we get home from work.  Not a lot of daylight hours.

In the summer the sun usually comes up before we even get up and it goes down after we get home from work.  Someone had the bright idea (Ben Franklin) that if we fooled ourselves by setting the clocks forward and back we could optimize the daylight in the summer after we get home.  So that is what we do.  

We gain another hour of after-work sunlight by getting up an hour early in the summer.  We change our clocks rather than changing our work hours

Answer 3

Daylight Savings Time is an attempt to save energy, promote commerce, and provide more evening sunlight during the winter months.

In actuallity studies have shown that any energy savings is negligable and that commerce and schedules daily schedules are generally uneffected by the change except for the inconvieninece.

While many people claim that it is because of farmers, agriculture typically does not like DST claiming that it disrupts the schedules of animals who do not know what time it is.

Answer 4

As you know during the summer months the days get longer, as the winter months approach they get shorter. Moving the clocks ahead or back to maximize daylight hours is done to save on energy used for lighting.

The idea was first proposed by Benjamin Franklin to help save candle wax during the American Revolution. However daylight savings was first put into practice during WWI to conserve on coal resources.