What's Wrong with the Coordinates at the North Pole?
Figure 1. (left) A view from the NOAA North Pole camera. (right) A reading from the North Pole taken on a handheld GPS device. The North Pole is a region of the Earth where a conventional coordinate system such as Universal Trans Mercator (UTM), due to its design, is not as useful. Instead, the Universal Polar Stereographic (UPS) coordinate system is most often used at the North and South Poles.Copyright NOAA http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/npole/2002/images/enlarged/noaa-2002-0429-1724-big.jpg (right) (C) 2004 Vicaar International Projects and Expeditions. Used with permission. http://www.northpolextreme.com/coordinates-at-north-pole.htm
Students complete a self-guided exercise in worksheet format combined with Google Earth that helps them explore practical and observable differences between different projection and coordinate systems. The activity improves their skills in using various Google Earth features.
Coordinate systems and projections are used by many different kinds of engineers that need to understand a project in terms of spatial data. This activity asks students to examine and use known systems in terms of the quantities defined within those systems (for example, degrees, minutes, seconds, meters).
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Identify obvious differences in appearance and accuracy between different global projections.
- Explain the difference between spherical geographic coordinate systems and Cartesian geographic systems.
- Demonstrate basic skills in Google Earth such as zooming, locating new places using the search bar, measuring distance, and manipulating multiple GIS layers.
- Provide examples of how engineers use coordinate systems and projections to help solve real-world problems.