GPS Scavenger Hunt
Students go on a GPS scavenger huntCopyright Erik Streb. Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gosmore_in_berlin_with_winCE_on_transonic_6000.jpg
Students go on a GPS scavenger hunt. They use GPS receivers to find designated waypoints and report back on what they found. They compute distances between waypoints based on the latitude and longitude, and compare with the distance the receiver finds.
GPS has applications on land, at sea and in the air. Engineer-designed GPS navigation systems are used at sea by recreational boaters, commercial fisherman, cruise lines and shippers. In land-based vehicles, GPS systems show the vehicle's position on a street map so drivers can keep track of where they are, suggest the best route to reach a certain location, and aid in obtaining emergency roadside assistance by transmitting the vehicle's current position to a dispatch center. In the skies, GPS is used by all types of aircraft.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Use numbers to count, measure, label, and indicate distances on a GPS receiver,
- Measure and calculate values from acquired data,
- Understand the connections between GPS technology and navigation, aircraft, and many forms of transportation