DAVID EXPLORES NEW WORLDS
FACT: COMPUTERS AND SATELLITES CAN HELP FARMERS MAKE BETTER DECISIONS
LESSON 1: A Map is Worth a Thousand Words (Language Arts, Music, Dance, Art, History)*
LESSON 2: Yield Map Math (Math)*
LESSON 3: Satellite Science (Science)*
LESSON 4: Finding Your Way (Geography)*
*All Lesson plans are adaptable for ALL ages!
DAVID EXPLORES NEW WORLDS
IIt was a dark July evening and David was lying on his back studying the stars, waiting for the one that would change his life. The grass was soft, and it was very quiet. He'd already found the stars outlining the Big Dipper and Leo the Lion.
He wanted to see a falling star. He had a wish, and his sister had told him that wishing on a falling star offered the best chance of success. So he waited.
The wish started with a bike, one with lots of speeds. But he didn't want just a bike. He wanted a bike that would take him places he'd never been. Places where he could see new sights, meet new people, try new things. Places he could explore, then name. Places where people would always remember him as the one who mapped the way.
He loved the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition. They'd studied the land and the native people, then drawn maps so others could follow.
He wondered if the stars had looked the same then. He had a book telling how important stars were to explorers. Once in a museum he'd seen a sextant, the tool explorers had used to find their positions on the earth.
He lay there quietly, slapping mosquitoes, dreaming about bikes and explorations. Wishing.
There, that was one. High over his head. A falling star! This was his chance! He leaped up.
He watched and waited, holding his breath. He wouldn't let it leave his sight. He waited. The seconds dragged by. One. Two. Three. Four. But the star didn't fall. It kept moving, slowly, across the sky. His hopes sank.
Later, his mom said, "I bet it was a satellite." David had seen a picture of one in his Weekly Reader in school, so he listened a little. "Some of them are useful in navigation. That means they can help make maps," she explained. "I'll have Kevin show you tomorrow."
 The next day, at his mom’s office, Kevin strapped a backpack on
David. Kevin was an expert in Global Positioning Systems, or
GPS. The backpack held a battery and a short pole topped with
an eight-inch spaceship. At least that’s what it looked like, but
Kevin said it was called a satellite receiver. He handed David a
little computer, then hooked the receiver to it.
David looked at the computer screen. There was a blinking dot
on it. When he moved, the dot moved! Satellites in space were
sending a signal to earth, straight to the receiver on his back. They
were monitoring his location! It said he was at 44.20544922
latitude and –94.25583759 longitude. He moved. Now he was
at 44.20531834 latitude and –94.25568914 longitude.
Kevin said there were 24 satellites that circled the earth. The
receiver needed to get a signal from at least three of them to
pinpoint any location on earth. He said every single place on earth
had its own latitude and longitude. No two were the same, and no
one would ever be lost if they knew those numbers.
David wasn’t listening. He was watching the computer screen follow every step he took.
 His mom said farmers liked GPS. They could make maps showing where they planted different corn hybrids or
installed drainage tile lines, or where their crops had an insect problem or needed more fertilizer. If they put a
GPS receiver in their combine they could make maps showing how
much corn was produced in different parts of the field.
When they studied all those maps together, they could decide what
was the most important, and then make better decisions. “Satellites
give farmers a way to measure things they’ve never been able to
measure before, to see things they’ve never been able to see
before,” said his mom.
That wasn’t too hard for David to understand. He knew how
important maps could be. In fact, he had an idea!
He asked Kevin to set the computer for making a map. Then he
jumped on his bike, backpack and all. It was his old bike, the one
with only one speed, but he wasn’t worried. He pedaled around
the blueberries and the windbreak. He rode around his house,
through the front yard, then up the driveway to the barn. He circled
the swing set, took a sharp right, and braked by his favorite tree.
Then he asked Kevin to print the map he’d made. It was wonderful!
He wrote names of all the places on his map, then asked Kevin to print a map of the world, showing how his
little map fit into the big world. He hung it on his wall to remind him of his dream.
Someday he’d be an explorer. He would lead people to new places, mapping the way for them.
It would be easier if he got that new bike. But even without it, David was going places. |
KEY ISSUES
