Journey North Mystery Class Spring 2006

Mystery Class Update: May 5, 2006

Today's Report Includes:

We Meet At Last!
A Wide World of Thanks!
Assessment Opportunities for Mystery Class
Searching for Secret Sites for 2007
Year-End Evaluation: Please Share Your Thoughts!
Have a Great Summer

We Meet At Last!

Can you imagine what it's been like to be one of the secret Mystery locations? What amazing patience they showed, waiting 12 long weeks or longer for this day to come. And during that time, they kept their identity a secret!

Introducing The 10 Mystery Classes for 2006:

Click on yellow map dots or
on the location name below for each Introduction

Introducing	Location	Latitude	Longitude
Mystery Class #1	Pristina, Serbia and Montenegro	42.650 N	21.167 E
Mystery Class #2	Dushanbe, Tajikistan	38.583 N	68.800 E
Mystery Class #3	Kapaau, USA	20.233 N	155.800 W
Mystery Class #4	Asuncion, Paraguay	25.267 S	57.667 W
Mystery Class #5	Wiesbaden, Germany	50.083 N	8.250 E
Mystery Class #6	South Pole Station, Antarctica	90.000 S	172.63 E
Mystery Class #7	Muscat, Oman	23.617 N	58.600 E
Mystery Class #8	Doha, Qatar	25.283 N	51.533 E
Mystery Class #9	Curitiba, Brazil	25.417 S	49.267 W
Mystery Class #10	Ismayilli, Azerbaijan	40.783 N	48.150 E

A Wide World of Thanks!

On behalf of the hundreds of classrooms that participated in the search for the formerly secret sites this year, we send our sincere thanks and global gratitude to all ten Mystery Classes!

With your help, students and teachers from all around the planet have joined together in an educational exchange of science, math, geography, culture, language and more, learning so much along the way. Take a bow, our ten new friends, and be proud as you look at the many ways your participation has enhanced the learning of students, teachers and schools.

Mrs. Quaglin's, fifth grade class
from Monmouth Junction School in New Jersey
summed it up this way:

"We learned a lot of different things - not just things connected with science or figuring out where in the world these classes were, such as:

It was cool to figure out the longitude based on Greenwich Mean Time.

To realize other countries must use daylight savings.

There are some incredible animals in the world that we have never seen.

How strange to think of April as fall and June as winter!

Our learning about symbols on a country's flag.

Hawaii had a king and a queen.

There are different athletic games other than the Olympics.

Making sure we used ALL the clues for the puzzle.

Why do the people in Brazil go through a tube to get on a bus?

And does it really snow in Hawaii?

We thought the egg would only stand on the equinox. Guess we were wrong.

It was neat being able to eliminate places for our guess knowing how their photo period compared to ours and that they had more or less light than us.

We totally enjoyed it. Awesome science."

Now that you've read a little bit of what others thought of Mystery Class, tell us what you think at the end of today's report in our Year-End Evaluation. We'd love to hear from you.

Assessment Opportunities for Mystery Class

Watching the wave of spring sweep northward is at the heart of Journey North. All seasonal change is driven by one underlying factor: the change in available sunlight. This includes:

The amount of time sunlight is available (called daylength or photoperiod)

The sun's intensity (due to the angle at which it strikes the Earth).

Mystery Class challenged students to find the locations of 10 Mystery Classes, using sunrise and sunset data as their primary clues. Here are assessment opportunities to help you document student understanding of key concepts:

Reasons for Seasons Assessment Tool

Also, see these additional assessment opportunities

Searching for Secret Sites for 2007

We're looking for classrooms OUTSIDE of North America that would like to be one of the 10 secret Mystery Classes in 2007!
PLEASE WRITE TO US!

Year-End Evaluation: Please Share Your Thoughts!

Please take a few minutes to share your suggestions and comments in our Year-End Evaluation. The information you provide is critical for planning new initiatives and for improving Journey North. Also, as a free program supported by a generous grant from Annenberg Media, we want to be able to document Journey North's reach, impact and value. THANK YOU!

Journey North
Year End Evaluation

Please share your thoughts!

The is the FINAL Mystery Class Update. We hope you enjoyed the mystery.
Have a great summer, and we'll see you next year!