Mystery Class Reminder: February 8, 2002 Today's Report Includes: First Greetings from Your Mystery Friends Got Graph Paper? What Time Is It?: Challenge Question #1 This Week's Sunrise/Sunset Times Note to Teachers: It's Wise to Organize Teacher Tip Coming in the Future Reports First Greetings from Your Mystery Friends Welcome to another fine season of Mystery Class, where it's your quest to uncover the 10 secret Mystery Classes hiding around the globe! Today's the day that we provide the first sunrise and sunset times from the 10 secret Mystery classes. They'd love to tell you where they're from, but they are sworn to secrecy! But don't fret, we'll continue to provide their sunrise/sunset times each week, and we'll also "leak" a few clues from them later in the season. Got Graph Paper? In our Reminder report last week, we asked you to record your first sunrise/sunset data for your hometown for Monday, Feb 4. Now you'll find the sunrise/sunset data for that date from your Mystery friends too. After you've calculated the photoperiods from the first set of sunrise/sunset data, you can plot those photoperiods on your Graph. What can you tell from the graph about the locations of the Mystery Classes? What Time Is It? The sunrise/sunset times below are posted in military time, which divides the day into 24 hours. But most of us don't use military time very often. Instead, most of the "time", our days are divided into 12 hour sets, one for "A.M." and one for "P.M.". (Afterall, when was the last time your parents told you to go to bed at 22:30?!) This made us think to ask you... Challenge Question #1: "What do the initials "A.M." and "P.M." stand for anyway?" (To respond to this question, please follow the instructions below.) This Week's Sunrise/Sunset Times Remember, the secret Mystery sites recorded their times last Monday, the same day you collected your own local sunrise/sunset data. Let the games begin! Journey North Mystery Class Sunrise/Sunset Data Data For: Monday, February 4, 2002 MYSTERY CLASS SUNRISE SUNSET #1 09:11 17:31 #2 00:00* 00:00* #3 06:57 18:20 #4 06:04 18:40 #5 06:47 18:23 #6 07:35 17:49 #7 06:44 17:41 #8 08:54 16:24 #9 06:27 17:53 #10 07:06 19:25 * Journey North Mystery Class #2 reported 00:00 for their times and said "when we have a sunset, we'll let you know!" Note: Military time is usually expressed without any punctuation. We have used a ":" between the hours and minutes for clarity.) Note to Teachers: It's Wise to Organize How To Organize Your Class 1. Divide Your Class into Eleven Groups. Give each group responsibility for one of the 10 Mystery Classes, and give one additional group responsibility for your own site. Every week, each group can record the data and calculate the photoperiod for their site. Then, each group can share their calculations with the rest of the class. Each individual student can add the information to his or her own graph. 2. Give Each Group: One copy of the Mystery Class Datasheet, to record sunrise/sunset times for each site. Available at page 98 of the Teacher's Manual, or link to: Mystery ClassDatasheet (11 copies) 3. Make Your Own Mystery Class Graph (If you have a Teacher's Manual, you can follow the instructions on pages 99-100, or follow the instructions below.) VERY IMPORTANT: In order for your graph to have enough room for a clear picture of the data, we strongly recommend that your graph be tall enough to prevent overcrowding! So be sure to follow the instructions below carefully. Teacher Tip For a large classroom wall graph, we recommend the example of Wisconsin Fifth Grade teacher and Mystery Class veteran and member of Journey North's Teacher-Advisory Board, Cathie Plaehn: Her class creates a huge 3 x 3 wall graph using butcher-block paper to plot the mystery! Each student-group makes their own individual graphs, and the entire class plots data on a wall graph. Because the sunrise/sunset times you received today are the first set of the season, Cathie's Teacher Tip is especially helpful because it also contains ideas for calculating photoperiods. Mystery Class Teacher Tips To make your own graph, use two pieces of 8 1/2 x 11 graph paper to allow at least an inch per day-length hour. Then, follow these instructions for assembling your graph: A. Vertical Axis Tape2 1/2 graph sheets together, so the resulting graph is 27 1/2" tall. The left edge of your graph (the 27 1/2" side, which is the vertical axis) will indicate day length hours. Allow space for 24 day-length hours in total. At the lower left, begin with 0 hours of day length. Go up the vertical axis to 24 hours, and allow 4 squares for each hour. B. Horizontal Axis The bottom of your graph (the 8 1/2 inch side, which is the horizontal axis), will denote the dates of your Monday readings. Mark 11 weeks along the bottom, allowing three squares per week. Write the following dates for your Monday readings along the bottom of the graph: Feb. 4, 11, 18, 25 Mar. 4, 11, 18, 25 Apr. 1, 8, 15 * For guidance or for an example of a graph that can be used by each individual student, look at a smaller one page example: Mystery Class Graph 2002 (Download in either a PDF or Word): PDF Word Coming in the Future Reports Eggtraordinary Experiments: March 1 The Longitude Clues: March 15 Clues from your Mystery Friends: March 22 & 29, April 5, 12, & 19 Answers Due: April 26 How to Respond to Today's Challenge Question: IMPORTANT: Answer only ONE question in each e-mail message. 1. Address an E-mail message to: jn-challenge-mclass@learner.org 2. In the Subject Line of the message write: Challenge Question #1 3. In the body of the message, answer the question above. The Next Mystery Class Update Will be Posted: February 15, 2002 Copyright 2002 Journey North. All Rights Reserved. Please send all questions, comments, and suggestions to our feedback form