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Maps / Geography /Latitude / Longitude

ge·og·ra·phy – noun jē-ä-gr-fē 1. an area of study that deals with the location of countries, cities, rivers, mountains, lakes, etc. What is a Map? A map is a visual image and representation of places including counties, states, countries and continents. Maps are ways that people can find where they are going to travel or live. Old maps give information about our past and allow for the information to be passed on for generations to come. Some of the oldest maps were on clay tablets around 2300 B.C. by Babylonians (ancient Babylon is located in what we now know as the country of Iraq). Creating maps is an art called cartography. Claudius Ptolemaeus’s, a Roman mathematician, astronomer and geographer, created a world map representing the Old World from about 60°N to 30°S latitudes. In fact, it was Ptolemy (who lived from 90 to 170 BCE) who invented the longitude/latitude system for reading maps. People used to travel with an atlas ( a large book of maps). Today, people only have to “google” the address on their cell phones or computers or use their GPS. Longitude/Latitude vs. GPS How Does It Work? lat·i·tude – noun la-t-tüd 1. distance north or south of the Equator measured in degrees up to 90 degrees 2. an imaginary line that circles the Earth at a particular latitude and that is parallel to the equator lon·gi·tude – noun län-j-tüd 1. distance measured in degrees east or west from an imaginary line (called the Prime Meridian) that goes from the North Pole to the South Pole and that passes through Greenwich, England 2. an imaginary line that circles the Earth at a particular longitude The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a navigation system of satellites that is used to calculate precise locations. Information is transmitted to Earth through signals. Bad weather? No problem. GPS will work in any type of weather, at any time needed anywhere you travel in the world! A GPS receiver can calculate latitude and longitude, as well as the distance necessary to travel from place to place. Check out www8.garmin.com/aboutGPS/ for more information on GPS.   Did You Know… On May 27, 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge opened in San Francisco, California. There was so much cable used in the Golden Gate Bridge that you could wrap it around the Earth’s equator more than three times. Just like figurative language, you wouldn’t literally wrap the cable, and it doesn’t mean exactly what it says. The distance of the Earth’s circumference (the distance around the edge of a circle) is approximately 24,900 miles. This means if you could drive your car around the equator of the Earth, you would drive about 24,900 miles!

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Kidsville Connections

March 2014 Connections

During the month of March, the contributions of women in the United States are celebrated during National Women’s History Month. This year, the theme for the month is Celebrating Women of Character, Courage and Commitment. This month we look at some women in our history who have demonstrated these characteristics.Babe Didrikson ZahariasBabe Didrikson Zaharias has been called the World’s Greatest Women Athlete. She was bornJune 26, 1911, in Port Arthur, Texas. Her real name was Mildred Ella Didrikson. There are twostories as to how she earned her nickname. One is that it was a name her grandmother called her; the other is the story she told, which is that she earned her nickname after hitting five home runs in a baseball game. Thus, her name was in honor of baseball great Babe Ruth. While participating in the 1932 Olympics, she won two gold medals and one silver medal in trackand field. In 1935, she began her professional golf career, becoming America’s first female golfcelebrity and the leading player of the 1940s and early 1950s. Babe died of cancer in 1956. Amy Elizabeth ThorpeAmy Thorpe is not a name that most people will know. Thorpe, born on November 22, 1910, inMinneapolis, Minn., was one of the most successful spies in history. Thorpe was a member of the World War II Office of Strategic Studies from which today’s SpecialOperations Forces have descended. During World War II, her code name was Cynthia. In one ofher many assignments, she persuaded an Italian Admiral, Alberto Lais, to give her all of the navy’s code and cipher books, as well as information that would disable ships. Her most famous assignment was in Vichy, France, where she solicited assistance from the French press officer, Charles Brousse, to gain information to use against the Nazi government occupying France. Jeannette Rankin Jeannette Rankin, born on June 11, 1880, was the first woman elected to the United States Congress. At the time Rankin was elected, only 40 states allowed women to vote. She was one of 50 members of Congress who voted against entry into World War I and the only member who voted against declaring war on Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor. She was elected to the House of Representatives in 1916 and to the U.S. Senate in 1940. Following her election in 1916, she said, “I may be the first woman member of Congress, but I won’t be the last.”

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