Teachers Page Part II:  Search for Ice and Snow
More Information for the Teacher

Teacher Page:  Part I  |  Search for Ice and Snow - Home

Purpose for "Search for Ice and Snow"

In this activity, students practice communicating in terms of latitude and longitude to try to guess where there are snowy mountainous places on the Earth. Then they verify their guesses by examining Earth images acquired by the Space Shuttle.

Vocabulary list:

latitude

location north or south of Earth's equator as specified in degrees of arc between 0 degrees (equator) and plus or minus 90 degrees (North and South Pole, respectively); degrees may be subdivided into 60 minute divisions, each of which may be subdivided into 60 second divisions.

longitude

location east or west of the Prime Meridan of the Earth as specified in degrees between zero and plus or minus 180 degrees

Prime Meridian

A semicircular line extending from the North Pole to the South Pole of the Earth and passing through [a particular location in the Observatory in] Greenwich, England.

?  Can you think any more vocabulary words?  If so, send them to the author:  Alan Gould

Homework:

1. Have students find an atlas of the Earth from which to make a list of snowy mountainous areas on Earth that could support skiing. They can bring the lists to have another session of finding Earth images on the Internet that verify locations with snowy mountains.
2. Have students look for snowy mountains on other bodies in our solar system. One place to start looking is at the home page of SEDS (Students for Exploration and Development of Space).

Assessment Strategies:

1. Have students submits their lists of verified snowy mountainous locations.
2. Find a partular image that has an especially interesting land feature in it and challenge students to (a) find the image from specified coordinates and (b) try to identify what the feature is.

Extensions:

Items listed in "Homework" (above) can also be used as extensions

National Standards:

National Standards--Grades 5-8 Content Standards:

(page 145) "Use appropriate tools and techniques to gather, analyze, and interpret data. The use of tools and techniques, including mathematics, will be guided by the question asked and the investigations students design. The use of computers for the collection, summary, and display of evidence is part of this standard. Students should be able to access, gather, store, retrieve, and organize data, using hardware and software designed for these purposes."

Other On-line Activities and Resources related to Search for Ice and Snow:

1. Ice On Venus
2. Other SEGway activities here ???