Lesson 1: A Map is Worth a Thousand Words
SUBJECT: Language Arts, Music, Dance, Art, History
OBJECTIVE: Students will realize the importance of "place" in their lives and the lives of others. They will study maps, then document the places they spend an hour/day/lifetime. They will learn that GPS is a new way of documenting locations on earth, then use their creativity to imagine new uses for GPS, as well as imagine how it may have changed history.
MEASUREMENT: Students will appreciate that maps document where something is, or where something occurs. They will understand that GPS can be used to pinpoint those locations, and they will have imagined ways the technology might make a difference in their future. (Or how it might have made a difference in the past.)
BACKGROUND FOR TEACHERS:
GPS, which stands for Global Positioning System, is the only system able to show you your exact location on the Earth anytime, in any weather, anywhere. Twenty-four GPS satellites, the first launched in 1978, orbit at 11,000 nautical miles above the earth. They continuously transmit signals that are monitored by ground stations located worldwide. These signals can be detected by anyone with a GPS receiver!
Each satellite takes 12 hours to complete one orbit around the earth. They are equipped with very precise clocks that keep accurate time to within three nanoseconds-that's 0.000000003, or three billionths, of a second. This precision timing is important because the receiver on the ground must determine exactly how long it takes for signals to travel from each GPS satellite. The receiver uses this information to calculate its exact position.
The GPS receiver (in your hand, on your car, on the farmer's combine, etc.) calculates the difference between the time the signal is sent and the time it is received, and multiplies that by the speed of light. This allows it to calculate the distance to the satellite. It takes these readings simultaneously from three to four separate satellites, each one identifying a region on the earth. The intersection of these regions pinpoints the exact latitude, longitude and altitude of the receiver.
Global Positioning Systems have revolutionized the ability of people to find or document their location on the face of the earth. As GPS receivers are made smaller and at lower cost, they will begin to appear everywhere in our daily lives!
They will be used for activities and purposes we cannot even imagine today...or can we?
STUDENT ACTIVITIES:
1. Ask students to read the story David Explores New Worlds. Ask them to study the map that David made of his farmsite. Talk about maps; how they're made, and how and why they're used. Discuss different kinds of maps.(Example 1, 2 , 3)
2. Tell students you want them to record, individually or as a group, every place they go for an hour (or day). The purpose of this is to help them begin to appreciate that everything they do occurs in a certain location, and that they can create a map showing those locations.
- They can sketch the classroom, and document the routes they take to the blackboard, the lunchroom, the library.
- They can use a map of their city or county to document the route they take to school.
- They can draw a floor plan of their house to document the routes they take between rooms, and the places they eat, watch TV, dress, and so on.
3. Show them the picture of David wearing the satellite receiver as a backpack. Tell them that GPS technology uses signals from satellites to pinpoint locations on earth (See the Background for Teachers section).
- Ask them to imagine HOW they would like to wear a GPS receiver. Are they wearing it in their tennis shoes? On a wristband? On their glasses? On a hat?
- Ask them to imagine WHY they might be wearing a GPS receiver. Do they get lost easily? Did their parents ground them and want to monitor them at all times? Are they a world famous map-maker on an adventure?
- Ask them to imagine the place(s) WHERE they will wear this receiver. Will they stay in a familiar place like they just described in section 2? Will they be in a new place? A strange place? A foreign country?
- Ask them to think of WHAT they will be doing while wearing the receiver. Are they looking for a treasure/person/answer? Making a map for a farmer/explorer/hunter/rescue team?
4. Let students, individually or in groups, choose one of the following methods to describe what they have imagined in Exercise 3. Explain again that the GPS receiver is a tool for documenting location. These stories, songs, or pictures must be about using GPS for some purpose.A map is worth a thousand words!
The sky's the limit (pun intended) on this exercise. Students can think about GPS as a tool for anything from keeping track of babies to criminals, from hiking in the rainforest to mining for gold, from farming to piloting airplanes! It might be helpful for students to brainstorm ideas before recording them in one of these ways.
Give a "corny" prize to the student with the best AGRICULTURAL "adventure!"
- Write a story or poem.
- Tell a story.
- Present a play.
- Draw a picture.
- Draw a map that tells a story.
- Choreograph a dance.
- Use pantomime.
- Build a 3-D model.
- Write a song.
5. Ask students to imagine a famous person or event in history, and describe in word/song/picture how that person or event would have been different if GPS had been available. (For example: How would GPS have changed the explorations of Lewis and Clark? How would GPS have changed the lives of Harriet Tubman? Beethoven? Confucius? How would GPS have changed the lives of the early American pioneers? The victims/soldiers of WWII?) |
KEY ISSUES
