Understanding Earth Tilt, Sun's Position and Lattitude Calculation I've been trying to figure out how to calculate the latitude of my location with just the shadow of a stick cast by the sun. I am doing this under the assumption that I am stranded in some place with no almanac or any other data. (not even day or month).

I want to find the latitude roughly. But I have problems picturing the globe along with it's tilted axis and the angles formed by the shadow.

Could you help me understanding the concept and give me a definitive picture of angles that can be calculated. A perspective like a side-view of the earth and sun (orbiting plane - perpendicular to the screen) would help me understand much better.

Here is my efforts to understand so far - 

I am not an expert nor have a good background in maths (my maths teacher ruined my life). So please explain me in simple words.
I've been trying to figure out how to calculate the latitude of my
  location with just the shadow of a stick cast by the sun. I am doing
  this under the assumption that I am stranded in some place with no
  almanac or any other data. (not even day or month).


You really cannot find your latitude with only the sun and sticks at your disposal and no declination data or time data. Maybe if you could record your shadow over a period of a day, you could tell if you are in the northern or southern hemisphere by observing which way the shadow moves. If it moves clockwise, you are in northern hemisphere.

And if you could repeat and observe for 365 days (from the day you are stranded, assuming you are very accurately measuring the angles) you could find if you are within the tropic of cancer or above it, as you might not have the sun right on top of your stick over the year if you are above the 23.5 N parallel.

And that's as far as you can get. To determine the precise location, you will need the sun's declination at any given time. May be you will get lucky, if the day you are measuring the angle and the equinox matches, but you wouldn't know it.


  Could you help me understanding the concept and give me a definitive
  picture of angles that can be calculated.


A picture is worth thousand words. And an interactive demonstration... It's worth at least a hundred 2D diagrams.

Additional Interactive media - http://astro.unl.edu/naap/motion1/animations/seasons_ecliptic.html