Yeah.... We're kind of a big deal

We've represented this school, the city of Sioux Falls, the state of South Dakota, and the United States well with our participation on Ediscio Flash Cards. Thanks to your diligent work in keeping up with your assigned learning schedules, we currently have the top 5 "most popular" cardboxes that the German-created educational site hosts.
I have a feeling that the Earth, Moon, and Sun Effects cardbox will soon join the others at the top. The flash cards included will prepare you very well for the multiple choice portion of the standard check next Monday. The standard check will also include some short answer/essay questions. I have decided to share those questions in this blog post so that you could think about them, prepare for them, and actually answer them if you'd like to type out your answer in a comment. (Otherwise, you will write your answers out in class on Monday.) Here they are:

1. If the moon happened to be closer to the Earth than it actually is, what would happen to the length of time it takes our moon to progress through all of its phases (from new moon back to another new moon)? Would the length of our month be longer, shorter, or the same? Why? (Hint: Use your knowledge of Kepler's Laws to answer this one.)
2. Would we experience a change of seasons if Earth’s axis was not tilted? In your answer, be sure to include at least two factors that cause winter temperatures to be colder than summer temps, and why this seasonal change in temperature would or would not be felt if Earth's axis was not tilted.