Teacher Discussion

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Re: Frustration about lat/long

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j> Hello! Although not as frusterated as Dennis, I think it
j> would be helpful to include lat/long lines when entering
j> sightings. My class has been having trouble finding
j> some of the places in an atlas and our trackings on the
j> map are now incomplete. Thanks. Cathy Timpone
j> <west31@worldnet.att.net

I have my students use Microsoft's "Encarta96 World Atlas" to find the
Long/Lat for the cities.
It is an inexpensive computer program that works real well. Plus it allows
the students to become familiar with yet more technology. The student
just types part or all of the name of the city in. A map with that location
as its center pops up complete with lat and long as well. A really nifty
program. I use it on my windows based machine but I believe it is
available for Macintosh as well. It has worked for all but one or two of
the cities and I suspect that they didn't work because of typos in them not
in the software.

Also, why can't every registering site be required to send lat and long
that could be kept in a database somewhere? I have worked with large
projects such as Journey North before and know the volume of traffic
generated is extremely large. It takes a lot of time for someone to do all
the work required that accompanies such a huge project. I'm sure no-one at
JN has the time to manage such data. Teachers of lower elementary students
could do the lesson "Your Global Address" found on page 41 of the Journey
North notebook to figure out their own lat and long. Upper Elementary and
above students can handle it themselves with a little direction. My sixth
graders did quite well with it. If teachers don't want to go that route,
there is bound to be someone around with a GPS that will very easily tell
you your lat and long. Also, if there is an airport nearby or a National
Weather Service you can find the lat and long by calling them. It should
be noted that with the smallness of the maps that most of us are using and
the largness of the stickers or colored pins we are placing on those maps,
we don't need to be very exact with the lat/long.....so the lat/long of the
airport within a few miles of your school should work fine.....

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• Maybe in reply to: Elizabeth Donnelly: "Frustration about lat/long"