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The Web Science Workshop lessons were created in cooperation with the Exploratorium Teacher Institute .
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Eric
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Find
the latitude and longitude of your house, school or
any location and then look at it from
above.
After
the concept of latitude and longitude have been
introduced to a class, use this lesson. It will
help students associate the terms latitude and
longitude with real localities and tangible
objects.
Step one -Go to the USGS Geographic Names Information System (GNIS). Input a land feature, town name or city into the system. You can use almost any large, well known feature. For example: The Exploratorium in California (you don't even have to mention that it is in San Francisco). Click here to go to the USGS Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
Step two - when the results come back copy them. For example: The Exploratorium is at Latitude of 374814N and a Longitude of 1222652W You will need to space out the numbers into degrees, minutes and seconds. For example: Latitude of 374814N = 37 degrees 48 minutes and 81 seconds North Longitude of 1222652W = 122 degrees 26 minutes and 52 seconds West
Click
here to see an example of the GNIS
output
Step three - go to TerraServer to see an aerial view of your house, school or whatever. TerraServer is one of the largest image databases in the world (TerraServer is a cooperative research project by USGS and Microsoft Corporation). It contains both satellite and aerial photographs of much of the United States and other parts of the world. Image resolution can be as clear as 1 meter. Input the Latitude and Longitude that you just obtained from the USGS into the TerraServer advanced search feature form. Click here to go to TerraServer advanced search.
Here are some more cool mapping related sites: For more activities on mapping and maps from the USGS Get some ideas from TerraServer
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