How it works
These summer themed trivia questions are all about the season: 81 multiple-choice questions in six rounds, on the solstice and the summer sky, heat and storms, the shore, ice cream and cookout food, fireflies and other wildlife, and midsummer festivals.
Read the full guide
What the six rounds ask
The solstice and the summer sky asks why the hottest days come after the longest one. Heat, storms and hurricanes runs from the heat index to the smell of rain. Beaches, tides and the sea explains sea glass, sandcastles and glowing waves. Ice cream, lemonade and the cookout asks where summer food comes from. Fireflies and summer wildlife and Midsummer and summer holidays close the set.
At camp, a reunion or a cookout
Read a question aloud, let the table vote, then tap the choice: the right answer is marked and its reason follows. After ten questions the score card shows Print question sheet; open More options there for Topic and Print answer key.
Tips
- Youngest players? Fireflies and summer wildlife has the most easy questions by our estimate.
- Beaches, tides and the sea is the hardest round by our estimate: one answer is the word syzygy.
- No question asks this year's dates or a record temperature, so the set does not go stale.
Questions and answers
When is the first day of summer?
By the Sun, it is the summer solstice: June 20 or 21 in the Northern Hemisphere. Weather services count summer from June 1. Both are asked in The solstice and the summer sky, along with the name for the delay before the hottest days.
Why do fireflies glow?
Mainly to attract mates: the light is a mating signal. It is called cold light because it has no infrared in it. Fireflies and summer wildlife asks both, and why the females of one kind copy the flashes of another.
Who invented the ice pop?
An 11-year-old, by his own account: in 1905 he left a glass of soda powder and water, with a mixing stick in it, on a porch on a cold night. The question is in Ice cream, lemonade and the cookout.