You might live in a small town just outside of Chicago, Illinois in the United States. You might be able to tell someone that you live in Chesterton next to the downtown Pavilion. Someone who lived locally would understand, but someone from another state or country would have no idea where you are referring to. What if it was critical for that person to locate your position? That is where the geographical coordinate system comes in. Every location on the globe can be located by its position horizontally (latitude) matched with its position vertically (longitude). Latitude is an imaginary line that spans the globe east to west. Longitude is its counterpart and spans north to south. Global addresses are formatted by latitude followed by longitude or a Lat/Long measure.
We find ourselves every day using the Global Positioning System (GPS) to get us from where we are to where we are going. This system is based on the measures of latitude and longitude to locate exact points. These worksheets examine the ins and outs of finding the exact location of you spot on the Earth. What does it mean and how do we interpret it? These worksheets start by looking at what each of those imaginary lines represents and how we use them to pinpoint spots on the globe and also in the sense of keeping accurate time where people can enjoy the most daylight. We then look back at the history of navigation and how we travelled the globe prior to Global Positioning Systems. We also take a look at how your latitudinal position dictates the natural resources available to you.