Curated OER
Orientation of the Earth in Space
Learners hypothesize the location of the sun in the sky at diferent times of day and at different latitudes. They perform several experiments to provide evidence for their hypothesis. Experiments including observing the sun's position at...
Curated OER
Stranded along the Coast
Middle schoolers plot stranding sites onto a map using latitude and longitude as well as compass directions with respect to coastal features. They identify several species of marine animals that might become stranded; distinguish their...
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Coral Bleaching in the Caribbean
Students use authentic satellite data on the NASA website to determine when the sea surface temperature meets the criteria to induce coral bleaching.
Curated OER
Science: Hurricanes As Heat Engines
Students conduct Internet research to track the path of Hurricane Rita. They record the sea surface temperature of the Gulf of Mexico during and after the hurricane and draw conclusions about how hurricanes extract heat energy from the...
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How to be a Great Navigator!
Students, through teacher lecture and class discussion, explore historical methods of navigation: dead reckoning and celestial navigation.
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Map Coordinate Bingo
Students play a bingo-type game to locate cities by coordinates. They explain the use of orientation on a map and identify cities in the western hemisphere. They compare road maps, shutttle images, and a CIR image and obtain an...
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Tell Time With Your Feet
Students discover what the latitude and longitude of their location is. They start walking and measure their shadow. They fill in a chart to discover the approximate time.
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Mission Planning: Geography
Students investigate the use of latitude and longitude to locate specific locations on Earth and evaluate that location as a potential landing site for researchers, terrestrial or alien space missions.
Curated OER
States with Attitude, Latitude and Longitude Dude
Sixth graders identify states whose boundaries are formed by lines of latitude and longitude or natural borders such as rivers. They trace a map of the U.S., and fill in borders, rivers and lines of latitude and longitude.
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Finding Longitude and Latitude on Pennsylvania Maps
Students draw the lines of longitude and latitude on a map. Students look at a topographical maps to see how topography relates to land use.
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How far have we traveled?
Students practice longitude and latitude to determine given position on Earth's surface, convert and calculate angular measurements, and use Pythagorean Theorem to determine change in position or distance traveled between any two locations.
Curated OER
Navigation
High schoolers study the basic methods for finding one's position on Earth. Latitude can be deduced from the height above the horizon of the pole star or of the noontime Sun, while longitude requires an accurate clock giving universal time.
Curated OER
Eagle Creek Park (A Hike)
Students plot a hiking course using aerial photos and a topographic overlay and find the latitude and longitude of absolute locations. They measure the total distance of a hiked area and figure the area of the ground walked using Heron's...