Caribou (or Bald Eagle) Tracking Sheet

Jim Minerich teaches 4th Grade at Pequot Lakes School in Pequot Lakes, MN. He has a good strategy for tracking the satellite-collared caribou with his class during the spring migration. They use a hand-held GPS (Global Positioning System) to assist them in determining the distance and direction each caribou moves between data updates.

"Our classroom uses a hand-help GPS to help us determine the distance and direction that each of the satellite-collared caribou move from update to update. Our GPS has as one of its functions a distance between waypoints function. Even though we know the data is days apart the direction is given to us in degrees. Our GPS does not use decimals so we have learned how to convert decimals to min/sec by multiplying. (For how to do conversions from decimals to min/sec see Conversions for Lat/Long.)

We use a worksheet to keep track of all the steps used for finding the distance and direction. Print a copy of this: