Like
Finding a Needle in a Haystack?
Comparing the Mexican Sanctuary Region
to the Expanse of the Monarchs' Eastern Range
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| The area in red measures over 9 million square kilometers. |
This map shows the HUGE area in North America across which monarchs move on their way to the sanctuaries in Mexico. The area in red measures over 9 million square kilometers!
In contrast, the sanctuaries are a tiny speck on the planet. They are clustered into a tiny region that measures only 800 square kilometers. This means the Monarchs find an area that is 11,000 times smaller than the area the migration crosses. Finding a needle in a haystack almost sounds easy in comparison! The monarchs certainly seem to know where they're going, don't they?
Try This: Journaling Question
Calculate the area of a standard football field, then answer this question:
"Finding the Mexican sanctuaries in the North American continent is like finding a _____ on a football field. (Fill in the blank with something to scale. That is, name an object that's 11,000 times smaller than a football field.)"
Here are the dimensions of a football field:
- Length of field: 120 yards (including 10 yards of end zone at each end).
- Width of field: 53 1/3 yards (160 feet).
Good
Luck!
Link to Answer (But
don't peek until you've done your own math!)
The World
in Spatial Terms
How to use maps and other geographic representations, tools, and technologies
to acquire, process, and report information.
How to use mental maps to organize information about people, places, and
environments.
National Math Standards
Numbers
and Operations
Understand meanings of operations and how they relate to one another
Measurement
Understand measurable attributes of objects and the units, systems, and
processes of measurement
Apply appropriate techniques, tools, and formulas to determine measurements.
