Lindsey Mohan, Ph. Audrey Mohan, Ph. Sean P. Lydia Lewis, M. For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource. If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer.
If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media. Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service. Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives. A curated collection for curious learners in grades K Direction is used to determine where things are in relation to other things.
Students listen to a poem that uses cardinal directions. They use a compass rose to help describe locations of places on a world map. Introduce young students to the concept of maps as representations of places with this classroom map. Join our community of educators and receive the latest information on National Geographic's resources for you and your students.
Skip to content. Twitter Facebook Pinterest Google Classroom. Links map The Weather Channel: U. Current Weather. Prepare materials for the activity. Find east and west by observing the sun in the morning and afternoon. Observe north and south, and label the classroom walls. Add the north and south labels to the classroom walls: Use a compass, or a compass app on a smartphone or tablet, to show north and south and reinforce east and west. Have students line up the E and W on the compass with east and west labeled on the wall.
Ask them to point toward the N, and explain that this direction is north. In areas where there is snow, teach north and south by observing where snow melts faster: the south side of buildings in the northern hemisphere.
North and south can also be observed with wind patterns. Track the weather using the provided Weather Channel website, and look for opportunities to take the students outside when north or south winds are blowing. Practice using cardinal direction s. Have students apply their understanding to a map.
Extending the Learning Have students watch the sun over a matter of months and note the change in its location as the days shorten and lengthen. Move the familiar animal to a different spot in the room each day. The directions East and West are positioned at right angles to the North and South directions. The other directions observed on a compass are primary intercardinal directions, also called ordinal directions, and secondary intercardinal directions.
Secondary intercardinal directions are the directions placed midway between each cardinal and primary intercardinal direction. These are north-northwest, north-northeast, south-southwest, south-southeast, west-northwest, east-northeast, west-southwest and east-southeast. The compass rose is a very important symbol on a map, nautical chart or compass that displays the orientation of geographical objects to cardinal and intercardinal directions. A compass rose with only the cardinal directions has four points.
This works at any latitude. An analog watch can be used to locate north and south. The Sun appears to move in the sky over a 24 hour period while the hour hand of a hour clock face takes twelve hours to complete one rotation. In the northern hemisphere, if the watch is rotated so that the hour hand points toward the Sun, the point halfway between the hour hand and 12 o'clock will indicate south. For this method to work in the southern hemisphere, the 12 is pointed toward the Sun and the point halfway between the hour hand and 12 o'clock will indicate north.
During daylight saving time, the same method can be employed using 1 o'clock instead of There are relatively minor inaccuracies due to the difference between local time and zone time, and due to the equation of time. The method functions less well as you get closer to the equator. The photograph shows a specialized hour watch designed for finding directions using the Sun in the northern hemisphere.
With the watch set to indicate local time, the hour hand is pointed directly at the Sun. North is then indicated by the local midnight position. Astronomy provides a more reliable method for finding direction at night. The Earth's axis is currently but not permanently pointed, to within a fraction of 1 degree , toward the bright star Polaris.
The exact direction of the axis changes over thousands of years due to the precession of the equinoxes. We call the end of the Earth's axis that points to Polaris the North Pole.
The opposite end of the axis is named the South Pole. Polaris is also known as the North Star, and is generically called a pole star or lodestar.
Polaris is only visible during fair weather at night to inhabitants of the Northern Hemisphere. Picking out a specific single star may leave one uncertain they've found the right one. As an aid to identifying Polaris, the asterism "Big Dipper" may be employed. The 2 corner stars of the "pan" those opposite from the handle point above the top of the "pan" to Polaris.
This is illustrated at this example , the beginning of a tutorial that teaches how to find Polaris. To see the rest of the tutorial click the link at the bottom of the illustration. From the Southern Hemisphere , nightly observations of the sky directly above the vicinity of the true pole will reveal that the visible stars appear to be moving in a circular path. It is actually the observer that is moving in the circular path.
This becomes completely obvious when a special case of long exposure photography is employed to record the observations, by locking the shutter open for most of the intensely dark part of a moonless night. The resulting photograph reveals a multitude of concentric arcs portions of perfect circles from which the exact center can be readily derived.
The common center is exactly aligned with the true as opposed to the magnetic pole. This also is true of the northern hemisphere, and can be used to verify one has correctly identified Polaris, which will not appear to move.
A published photograph exposed for nearly 8 hours demonstrates this effect. At the very end of the 19th century, to avoid the need to wait for fair weather at night to precisely verify one's alignment with true north , the gyrocompass was developed for ship use in scenarios where the magnetic compass simply wasn't good enough. It has the further advantages of immunity to interference by stray magnetic fields, and not depending on Earth's magnetic field at all.
Its major disadvantage is that it depends on technology that many individuals might find too expensive to justify outside the context of a large commercial or military operation.
It also requires a continuous power supply for its motors, and that it be allowed to sit in one location for a period of time while it properly aligns itself. Near the end of the 20th century the advent of satellite-based Global Positioning Systems GPS provided yet another means for any individual to determine true north accurately. The government agencies responsible for the satellites continuously monitor and adjust them to maintain their accurate alignment with the Earth.
There are consumer versions of the receivers that are attractively priced. Since there are no periodic access fees, or other licensing charges, they have become widely used.
GPRS functionality is becoming more commonly added to other consumer devices such as mobile phones. Handheld GPSRs have modest power requirements, can be shut down as needed, and re calibrate within a couple of minutes of being restarted. In contrast with the gyrocompass which is most accurate when stationary, the GPS receiver must be moving, typically at more than 0.
Within these limitations GPSRs are considered both accurate and reliable. The GPSR has thus become the fastest and most convenient way to obtain a verifiable alignment with the cardinal directions.
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