Activity 1- Location, Location, Location

Before beginning this activity, you should have first read about the five themes of geography. If you have not done so, go to this page from the National Geographic Society. (You do not have to read the whole page. For now, just read the first two paragraphs on location.)

In this first lesson, you are going to learn about the first of the five themes of geography- location. To further complicate things, we are going to further divide location into Absolute Location and Relative Location. Absolute location is the location of a place on the Earth's surface that is found using the lines of latitude and longitude. Relative location is the location of one place in relation to another place.

To begin this activity, make sure you have a blank map of the world. Print it out if your teacher does not have one to pass out to you. Now, complete the following tasks on your handout of the blank map of the world. When asked to do so, label locations on the map. Answer all other questions on the back of this page.

Note- If you do not know the meaning of a word, first try going to this glossary.

Click on the link below from MSN and Encarta to see a zoomable map of the world. Be sure to keep your web browser open so that you can go back and forth between these directions and the map.

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/mapcenter/map.aspx

1. In order to understand latitude, you must first locate the Equator. Find it on both your blank map and the map on the computer. Places are given a location as being either north or south of the Equator. An example would be, St. Louis is located between 38°N (degrees north) and 39°N (degrees north) of the Equator. Now zoom into North America and locate Chicago on the map.

1. Is Chicago located north or south of the Equator?
2. Chicago is located closest to which line of latitude?

2. In order to understand longitude, you must locate the Prime Meridian. You will probably now have to zoom out on the map on the computer to find the Prime Meridian. Label the Prime Meridian on your map. Places are located either east or west of the Prime Meridian. Again, St. Louis is located about 90°W (degrees west) of the Prime Meridian.

1. Is Chicago located east or west of the Prime Meridian?
2. Chicago is located between which two lines of longitude?

3. What city is located at about 38°N and 77°W.

4. The world is generally divided up in 7 continents: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America (Sometimes North America and South America are considered as the one continent America, and Europe and Asia can be viewed as being Eurasia which gives us just 5 continents.) Now, zoom out on the globe and label the seven continents on your map. Since we have already found a city in North America, your next task is to give the location in latitude and longitude of one city from each of the other six continents. Try and choose cities that you may want to learn more about- you will later have the opportunity to do this. Remember latitude always measures north and south of the equator, and longitude always measures east and west of the Prime Meridian. Draw the following table on the back of your map and fill in the cells.

5. We have now practiced using the lines of latitude and longitude to understand absolute location. Relative location is a much easier concept to understand. Instead of saying that the absolute location of St. Louis is 38°N and 90°W, I can give you the relative location of St. Louis by saying that it is located southwest of Chicago. Or, I can say St. Louis is located in the midwestern region of the United States. Or, St. Louis is located along the Mississippi River. While the absolute location of a place can be given in just one way, the position of the place using latitude and longitude, the relative location of a place can be described in many ways.

1. Describe the relative location of Chicago in three different ways.

6. Now, give the relative location of the same six cities that you chose to describe using absolute location. Add a column to the table that you drew in number 4, and fill in the relative location for each of your cities.

Now, in order of preference, send my your top three choices of countries that you wish to learn more about in activities two and three. Also, give me the name of the person that you would like to work with for this project. If you do not give me a name, I will choose a partner for you.

You have completed activity one. Hold onto your handout until your teacher asks you to turn it in. To learn more about the history of latitude and longitude, visit the following web site.

http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa031197.htm

You can also try out the Continents Quiz from the "Emulate Me ™" web site.

When instructed to do so, you can continue your brief tour of the world by going to activity 2.