You can make the study of latitude and longitude more interesting to your students by showing them how it relates to their school, home, or other local landmarks with which they are familiar. Consider the picture below. (This picture may take a while to load; I intentionally kept it large so you could see the details as clearly as possible.)
This is an aerial photo of Chilhowie Elementary School taken in 1999 by the United States Geological Survey. The photo is overlaid with a grid that represents latitude and longitude lines. You can see that Chilhowie Elementary is located at approximately 36N 48' and 81W 39' (36 degrees, 48 minutes north of the equator and 81 degrees, 39 minutes west of the prime meridian). You could also estimate the school's location, or actual rooms within the school, to the nearest second. (Degrees of latitude and longitude are broken into minutes, and the minutes into seconds.)
There is a Web site that has similar aerial photos of almost the entire United States. It is called the Terraserver. Once you go to the Terraserver Web site, you can get in the ballpark of the location you are looking for by entering a place name, such as Chilhowie, Saltville, or Marion. The Terraserver will search its database to determine if it has an aerial photo or a USGS topographical map. You can display either. You can then use the Terraserver's on-screen tools to scroll around the image or zoom in and out. The image below is zoomed all of the way in. When you first begin looking at Terraserver's aerial images, you may find it difficult to locate familiar landmarks, because you are looking at them from a new perspective. I usually begin by zooming out far enough to find something I know, such as an Interstate 81 interchange or other road intersection. Then I work down from there.
After you find the image you are looking for, click the Image Info button above and to the left of the image. That will overlay the latitude and longitude information.
Using this technique, you and your students can find the precise latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates of your classroom, their home, or any other landmark.
If you found this tip useful or have suggestions for improving it, please send feedback to Terry Hawthorne.