Today is a day of rapidly developing technology, and GPS is at the forefront. But now that you know about latitude and longitude, and how useful it can be to know precise locations, you are ready for a growing future! Good luck, and enjoy it!

If you want to do more

Here are some activities you could do to build on the activities you have already done and what you have just learned.

1. Find a map of the Pacific. Copy down the positions of Pride of Baltimore II from the Captain's Log and plot her voyage on your map.

2. You could build an astrolabe, a quadrant, or a cross-staff, and try your own hand at using these historical instruments. There are some Web sites that can instruct you on how to build them, and how to use them, as well as give you possible activities to do with them. Some Web sites for an astrolabe are:
   • Hands-On Astrolabe
   • Making a Simple Astrolabe

   A Web site for a cross-staff are:

   • Cross Staff Project

   A Web site for a quadrant is:

   • Quadrant Projects

3. You could calculate how far your position is from the Prime Meridian, using the sunrise.
   1. Find out when sunrise is for Greenwich for a given day (the UK Sunrise and Sunset times Web site will give you sunrise for London, which is close enough).

   2. Then find out what time the sunrise will be for your location that same day (use the Sun or Moon Rise/Set Web site to give you that time).

   3. Then convert your sunrise time to Greenwich time, and calculate the distance you are from Greenwich using the time difference. You can use the World Time Zone Map Web site that shows time zones so you can determine your time difference from Greenwich or use the Times around the world - USA Web site to tell you your time difference from Greenwich.

4. Develop a more precise usage of latitude and longitude by breaking the degrees down into minutes, or even seconds! Then check out an atlas and a map, and see if you can identify more precise positions for different cities. Each degree is divided into 60 minutes. Each minute is divided into 60 seconds. These are the symbols you will see after each of these divisions in a reading of latitude or longitude:

   ° = degrees
   ' = minutes
   " = seconds