Mystery Class Update: April 4, 2003
Today's Report Includes:
- Clever Clues Bring You Closer
- Time Slipping Away? Challenge Question #4
- Find Anything "Eggciting"? Challenge Question #5
- Important ADVANCE Notice to Teachers
- This Week's Sunrise/Sunset Times
- CLUES From Your Mystery Friends
- Clues Calendar: Plan Ahead and Mark Your Calendars
Clever Clues Bring You Closer
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Your Mystery friends are getting clever now! Along with the latest set of the sunrise/sunset data, you'll find the latest clues and some great photos too.
We'll provide clues for just the next two weeks. Pay close attention,
because the clues will continue to get more specific each time, and help
bring you closer to unlocking the mystery.
Something's happened to the sunrise/sunset times for Mystery Classes #5 and #9. No April fooling, these are their actual times. Which makes us ask you:
Challenge Question #4:
"What do you notice in this week's sunrise/sunset times for Mystery Classes #5 and #9 below? What do you think happened? Why doesn't this change the photoperiod trend lines on your graph for these Mystery Classes?"
(To respond to this question, please follow the instructions below.)
Find Anything "Eggciting"?
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Challenge Question #5:
"Is there some sort of cosmic 'balance' that makes eggs stand on their own on the Equinoxes, but not on other days? Describe the results of your egg balance tests. How many eggs balanced during each test week? From these results, can you draw any conclusion about whether eggs balance any better on the Equinox than during the other four weeks of testing? Any worse? About the same?"
(To respond to this question, please follow the instructions
below.)
Important ADVANCE Notice to Teachers: Rules for Preparing Your Answer
We'll provide new clues from the Mystery Classes for the next two weeks, and then your answers will be due by the April 25 deadline.
Complete instructions on how and when to submit your answers will be provided in the next two Updates.
In the meantime, as teachers, you understand the importance of students carefully reading and following instructions for properly submitting your answer. So we want to take a moment now to alert you in advance to a few of the very important rules that you'll need to follow:
1. Send your answer IN THE BODY of an E-mail ONLY (NO Attachments!)
2. INCLUDE YOUR GRADE IN THE SUBJECT LINE of your E-mail
(If you don't, your answer will be judged with the Grade 12 entries.)3. DEADLINE: ANSWERS ARE DUE NO LATER THAN APRIL 25, 2003
(To be fair to everyone, any answers sent after that date will not be accepted.)4. WARNING: DOUBLE CHECK YOUR ANSWER CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU SEND IT IN!
Be careful, and make sure you have your answers the way you want them:
* Once you've submitted your answer, you may not change it or try to send it in again.
* Only one answer from each class will be accepted. And once your answer is received, we cannot change or correct your mistakes (even simple ones like transposed locations). So be sure to double check your answer before submitting!
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.
Journey North Mystery Class
Sunrise/Sunset Data
Data For: Monday, March 31, 2003
| MYSTERY CLASS |
SUNRISE |
SUNSET |
| #1 |
05:32 |
18:15 |
| #2 |
06:25 |
18:46 |
| #3 |
05:56 |
17:52 |
| #4 |
05:45 |
18:03 |
| #5 |
07:11 |
20:06 |
| #6 |
07:04 |
19:18 |
| #7 |
00:00* |
00:00* |
| #8 |
06:23 |
18:30 |
| #9 |
07:29 |
20:19 |
| #10 |
05:32 |
17:44 |
* Journey North Mystery Class #7 reported 00:00 for their times
and said "24/7, definitely dark here, fulltime!"
(Note: Military time is usually expressed without any punctuation.
We have used a ":" between the hours and minutes for clarity.)
CLUES From Your Mystery Friends
| Mystery Class | Clues | ||
| #1: | "In
the last national census, our state's human population finally was
higher than our dairy cow population. The most popular product from
our state comes from putting holes in trees. Our neighboring state
would rather die than not live free." |
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| #2: | "Our
state goose is threatened by another animal that also has goose
in its name. We became a territory of our country in 1900, and had
a governor for almost 60 years before we became a state." |
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| #3: | "It is common to see chameleons in your garden and geckos in your house, and ghosts that only haunt our country." Also, here's a little language lesson. In our language: to
look = jereo |
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| #4: | "Everybody's
favorite food is rice, but we eat a lot of plantains, taro, yams
and breadfruit as well as cornmeal and sorghum, which we call pitimi.
Beans are also a very important part of our diet. Our main exports
are coffee, cocoa beans and clothing that is sewn here. Ours is
an agrarian economy, and in English, the name of our currency is
the same name as something you may have seen in your grocery store's
produce section--especially in the fall " |
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| #5: | "Our
country is known for its long history of skating, and for the plants
shown in this photo."
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| #6: | "Music
plays a large part in our country, and we have many instruments
such as the tama, the sabar, the djembe, and the kora. If you enter
a room in our country, it is important to shake everyone's hand
softly and to greet them. The majority of people in our country
pray five times a day, and people in our country use their right
hand to eat." |
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| #7: |
"At this secret location there are mountain ranges, but they are not visible on the horizon. The elevation of this secret site is over 9,000 feet above sea level. '-ology' is a suffix meaning 'the study of', and there's a lot of study that goes on here , such as upper atmosphere physics, meteorology, earth sciences, geophysics, glaciology, and astrophysics. The photo shows one of the science buildings here that measures some of the cleanest air on Earth."
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| #8: |
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| #9: | "We
can be in the capital city of our country in 40 minutes by train.
We are also about 50 km from a city in our country that is said
to be the fifth largest."
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| #10: |
"A three toed furry friend hangs lazily from the canopy, hardly moving unless it's very hungry. Down on the ground, these tiny creatures parade across the forest floor, carrying bites of leaves, petals and bark to their nests, then return for more." |
Clues Calendar: Plan Ahead and Mark Your Calendars
Here's the 2003 Mystery Class Schedule so you know what to expect from Journey North. Please be sure to plan ahead.
Mystery
Class Calendar 2003 |
| February 7- April 18: | Each Friday, Sunrise/Sunset Times are posted for the ten Mystery Sites. |
| March 14: | The "Longitude Clue" is posted. |
| March 21, 28, April 4, 11 & 18: | Interdisciplinary clues from the Mystery Sites are posted each week. (Please Note--out of fairness to all participants, we will only post the clues on their scheduled dates.) |
| April 4, 11 & 18 | We'll give instructions on how and when to send in your answers for the April 25 deadline. |
| April 25: Deadline for Your Answers! | No late entries will
be accepted (out
of fairness to all participants, no exceptions.) |
| May 2: | Mystery Sites Revealed! |
| May 9: | Meet Your Mystery Friends! |
How to Respond to Today's Challenge Questions:
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 your message write: Challenge
Question # 4 (OR #5)
3. In the body of EACH message, give your answer to ONE of the questions
above.
The Next Mystery Class Update Will Be Posted on April 11, 2003
Copyright 2003 Journey
North. All Rights Reserved.
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