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Science 4: Latitude and Longitude 84 Views
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Description:
Don't you give us any latitude...without providing a longitude, too. We'd be totally lost without both. Today's lesson is all about finding yourself (and other things) with latitude and longitude.
Transcript
- 00:04
[Dino and Coop singing]
- 00:13
If you want to invite a buddy over to your place, you're gonna have to give them your address.
- 00:17
…Well, we guess you don't have to…you could just follow them around as they wander [Guy following his friend]
- 00:19
around your neighborhood all day trying to find you and laugh at them from the bushes.
- 00:23
…Though you might not stay friends if you do that… [His friend is looking angry]
Full Transcript
- 00:25
So let's say that you decide to be nice and give them your address. [They shake hands]
- 00:28
You tell them you live on 123 Main Street, and bingo!
- 00:31
Your friend comes over, you chow on left over Chinese food, watch movies all night, and [Guys eating in front of the TV]
- 00:35
pass out exhausted at midnight.
- 00:36
But plot twist…what if your friend was an alien from outer space?
- 00:39
Well, first of all, congrats on contacting aliens! [Guy spilts in half to reveal an alien]
- 00:42
That's pretty rad.
- 00:43
But here's the thing…if you only gave them your address, 123 Main Street, they'd have
- 00:47
a pretty hard time finding you. [Alien searching down the street for the address]
- 00:48
Why?
- 00:49
Because there are over 10,000 streets in America named Main Street.
- 00:52
…huh.
- 00:53
Maybe we need to be a little more creative about naming things… [Alien looking confused]
- 00:56
Anyway, you should probably narrow things down a little, because we don't want your
- 00:59
cool alien friend to get angry and decide to give world domination a shot. [The aliens eyes go red]
- 01:04
So how do you narrow things down?
- 01:06
Well, you could give them your state or zip code, but your alien bud just happens
- 01:10
to be using a map out of the country, so your best bet would be to give them your latitude
- 01:14
and longitude coordinates. [Latitude and longtitude grid appears over a map]
- 01:17
You can think of latitude and longitude as an imaginary grid of lines that crisscrosses
- 01:21
the entire world.
- 01:22
Lines of latitude run East and West, and are used to measure North and South.
- 01:26
The equator right here in the middle is what divides the Earth in half. [Dino and Coop looking at the equator]
- 01:29
It runs through Africa, Indonesia, and Ecuador in South America.
- 01:33
The equator is 0 degrees latitude, and as you move away from the equator in either North
- 01:38
or South directions, the lines of latitude go up in value – meaning that 10 degrees [The degrees of latitude are shown]
- 01:43
north is closer to the equator than 30 degrees north.
- 01:46
Make sense so far?
- 01:47
Good.
- 01:47
Because if you understand the lines of latitude, then the lines of longitude will be a breeze. [Alien looking at a globe]
- 01:51
Lines of longitude run North to South, are used to measure East and West.
- 01:56
Just like the equator is the middle point for latitude, the prime meridian is the middle
- 02:00
line for these lines – it's 0 degrees longitude.
- 02:03
And as you move away from it in either direction, well, the numbers go up.
- 02:07
Easy, right?
- 02:08
So how might our alien friend use these lines to find a location? [Alien scratching his head]
- 02:11
Well, by combining both the latitude and longitude, you get coordinates which can be used to pinpoint
- 02:16
an exact location.
- 02:17
So if someone gave us the coordinates 30 degrees North, 90 degrees West, where would we be…? [Alien looking for the coordinates]
- 02:23
Since latitude is always listed first, we'd find that line first….riiiiight…here. [Finger going along the latitude line]
- 02:28
Bingo.
- 02:29
30 degrees north.
- 02:30
Then, we'd follow that line until it intersected with 90 degrees west and voila, we're looking
- 02:35
at gumbo and crawfish in New Orleans, Louisiana!
- 02:38
Every single location on Earth can be found using these types of coordinates! [The pyramids with their coordinates]
- 02:42
It's a sort of like a global address.
- 02:44
That means that if you have the coordinates for a location, you can find it quickly and
- 02:48
easily with the help of a GPS or a computer program like Google Maps. [Someone using a GPS]
- 02:52
Though…not a whole lot of people use coordinates, so if you have a human party, maybe just stick
- 02:56
to giving your actual address. [Guy looks angry as his friend has given him coordinates]
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