What are ice ages?

Ice ages are really long periods when Earth gets much colder and bigger ice sheets cover large parts of the world.

Imagine your freezer at home, it’s like a tiny ice age! When you put food in there, it gets cold and sometimes freezes. Now think about that, but instead of just your freezer, imagine the whole planet getting super cold for thousands of years.

Earth has a kind of thermostat, it can get warm or cold depending on things like how much sunlight we get. Sometimes, Earth's thermostat shifts, and we get more ice forming across the land, especially in places like North America and Europe.

After many years of being super cold, Earth starts to warm up again, just like when you take food out of the freezer and it thaws. The big ice sheets start to melt, and Earth goes through a warmer time called an interglacial period, which is like a long summer for our planet.

It’s like Earth is taking really long naps in the freezer, then waking up to enjoy some warm days!