PNL Lesson 5 PICKING COORDINATES FROM PAPER MAPS TEACHER INFORMATION

Transcription

1 Place Names and Landmarks Lesson 4 PNL Lesson 5 PICKING COORDINATES FROM PAPER MAPS TEACHER INFORMATION Lesson Summary: Students identify place names or landmarks on a topographic map and use Google Earth or Swath Viewer to determine the latitude and longitude of these sites. These coordinate locations can then be used in digital map-making or way-finding with a GPS. Objectives: Estimated Time: Students will be able to pick coordinate points off a topographic map. (It is assumed that students have done the preceding PNL lessons and GIS Lesson 12, Adding Coordinate Locations into a GIS. ) 1 hour Correlation to Alaska Standards: Cultural D-4 Gather oral and written history information from the local community and provide an appropriate interpretation of its cultural meaning and significance. Cultural E-2 Understand the ecology and geography of the bioregion they inhabit. Geography A Make and use maps, globes, and graphs to gather, analyze, and report spatial (geographic) information. Geography B Utilize, analyze, and explain information about human and physical features of places and regions. BACKGROUND FOR THE TEACHER There are two primary reasons for learning to pick coordinate locations from a topographic map. One reason is that you might want to convert a paper place names map to a digital map. As was mentioned in PNL Lesson 4 - What's in a Name?, there has been and continues to be tremendous interest in the documentation of historic place names and their stories. Individual community members, village and regional corporations, governmental agencies, and academic researchers have all played a role in such documentation. This research has resulted in a range of resources stored or documented in a range of places (such as under grandpa's bed, in library archives, and everywhere in between.) Early documentation was often done on topographic maps accompanied by copious note taking, (and sometimes audio recordings), and is a rich source of historical information that preceded digital technology. With effort, many of these resources could be accessible to classrooms for conversion to digital maps. Page 41

2 Place Names and Landmarks Lesson 4 A second reason for picking coordinates off a map is that you might want to select and plan a travel route beginning with a topographic map and then programming those points into your GPS. In both of these cases, it is necessary to estimate the latitude and longitude of a waypoint with as much accuracy as possible (i.e. more accuracy than you would get by estimating coordinates using a paper topographic map). Use of Internet programs such as Google Earth and Swath Viewer allow students to pick points with four to six decimal degrees of accuracy which is enough to get within a reasonable range for these purposes. While each of these Internet programs are adequate for determining coordinates, the procedures for obtaining coordinates and the imagery used differ. Google Earth uses satellite imagery that is likely more recent than the topographic map with which your students will be working. The lack of topographic map clues on the satellite image may make it harder to pinpoint historic places, but the procedure for getting coordinates is quite straight-forward. Swath Viewer uses topographic maps that correspond more directly to the paper place names maps, but the process for gathering coordinates using Swath Viewer is a bit complicated. Before doing this lesson with students, give each of these approaches a try yourself and decide which Internet program you want your students to work with. MATERIALS For each student group using local community place names maps Topographic map of area with place names marked Computers with internet access to Google Earth and Swath Viewer Copy of handout Student Exercise INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURES Gear-Up Pass out copies of your local place names map to each group and ask students to spend some time reading and discussing the map and getting oriented. Ask students what they notice about the map and how it is similar to and different from the Trip to Puvlatuuq map they worked with in PNL Lesson 4. Discuss the fact that while these place names are recorded on the paper map, creation of a digital map would allow students to store and link to other important information about these places. Now ask them to think about what they would need in order to create a GIS map with these place names on it. (Note that coordinates are necessary for accuracy here.) Page 42

3 Place Names and Landmarks Lesson 4 Explain that the process for finding coordinates takes two steps: o First, each group will look over the place names map and mark 3-4 places of interest to them. o Second, after all student groups have completed the first step, they will use their marked topographic map to determine the site coordinates using Google Earth and/or Swath Viewer on the computer. Hand out worksheets and place name maps to student groups. Explore Student groups mark places on the local place names map topographic map and follow worksheet instructions to determine and record coordinates for each point. Generalize Discuss the challenges of matching points from the paper map to the satellite image. Discuss issues of coordinate accuracy and how close is close enough. Apply/Assess Students use the coordinates obtained to create a csv file (GIS Lesson 12) and to then create a digital map in GIS plotting these place names. Students could also use these coordinates to create waypoints for travel (GPS Lesson 1). TEACHER RESOURCES Alaska Native Knowledge Network, Oral Tradition and Cultural Atlases. Available online at Project Jukebox: Oral History Program. University of Alaska Fairbanks. Available online at (This site contains over 35 projects from throughout Alaska which integrate oral history recordings with associated photographs, maps and text.) Page 43

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5 Place Names and Landmarks Lesson 5 Name: PNL Lesson 5 PICKING COORDINATES FROM PAPER MAPS STUDENT EXERCISE By the end of this lesson, you will be able to determine the coordinates of points on a paper map, which you can then use to create points in a GIS project or to enter as waypoints into a GPS. You do this in two steps: Selecting and marking places on a local place names map. Determining the coordinates of those points on a computer Explore 1: Marking Points on a Topographic Map 1. Spend some time looking at your place names map, and think about how it is similar to or different from other maps you have seen. Record some of your observations here: 2. Choose 3-4 sites that you would like to plot on a GIS map or navigate to using a GPS. Record the place names of these sites in the table below. WAIT to fill in the latitude and longitude until the computer lab. Site # Site Name Latitude Longitude Page 45

6 Place Names and Landmarks Lesson 5 Explore 2: Finding the Coordinates Using Google Earth 1. Bring the marked place names map to the computer lab. 2. Open Google Earth 3. Click on Google Earth in the menu bar to open the drop down menu and then select Preferences. 4. In the preferences window, select decimal degrees and click OK. 5. From the table of contents on the left, select Fly To and type in the name of your community Page 46

7 Place Names and Landmarks Lesson 5 6. Use the pan and zoom tools on the right side of the screen to locate the first of the place names you ve chosen. As you pan, find the latitude and longitude numbers on the center bottom of the image. Notice how these coordinates change as you move your mouse. 7. Hover the mouse directly over the location of your first site and then record the latitude and longitude for this site in your table on page one of this worksheet. 8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 for each place name on your sheet. 9. Now you are ready to create waypoints or a CSV file! Explore 3: Finding the Coordinates Using Swath Viewer Set Up Swath Viewer (Note: If using a Mac, it is best to use your Safari browser) 1. Go to Geographic Information Network of Alaska at: Page 47

8 Place Names and Landmarks Lesson On right side of page select Swath Viewer icon. 3. A blue screen will appear. Follow directions to download Java if necessary. 4. Click icon at top of blue page to launch Swath Viewer. 5. A Java screen will appear along with another pop-up to confirm Java launch. Click RUN. A virtual globe will appear. Navigate to Location 1. You can navigate to your location either by zooming to a major city or by entering the coordinates of a smaller or remote community. a) If you want to automatically zoom to a major city in Alaska, use the Target (cross-hair) button. From the drop down menu, select the location nearest your interest area to get flown there. You can drag the scene around and navigate to your community using the Pan tool (crossed arrows). Page 48

9 Place Names and Landmarks Lesson 5 b) To navigate using coordinates, enter the approximate coordinates of your location (taken from a paper map or Google Earth) into the box on the left of your screen. Slide the pixel zoom control scale to about 50m and click Go. If nothing happens or the correct image doesn t appear, check to see that you entered coordinates correctly and that that the pixel zoom control scale is set at about 50 m. 2. Use the magnify tool to zoom to your location. You can use the magnify tool to drag and draw a box to zoom to Notice the blue box in the upper left corner. It displays the latitude and longitude of your cursor position. They will likely be in degrees, minutes, seconds. (e.g o W, 63 o ) Page 49

10 Place Names and Landmarks Lesson Since you need your points in decimal degrees, you will first need to change the display in Swath Viewer to this format. To change the latitude and longitude to decimal degrees, go to the Tool Box Button (wrench and screwdriver). From the drop down menu select Set Lon/Lat Format. Then, from the pop-up select the top format, displaying coordinates in decimal degrees. Hit OK. The latitude and longitude in the blue box should now read in decimal degrees. (e.g o, o ) Turn on Topographic Map Now you are ready to access the topographic map for your community. It is georeferenced and you can use your cursor to hover over a point of interest and obtain latitude and longitude coordinates. 1. In the left hand menu, find Images folder and open (expand). It may already be expanded. Then click on Misc. Page 50

11 Place Names and Landmarks Lesson 5 A second menu will open in the box below and will display the layers of image and other data available for your selected area 2. Using the slider on the right side of this menu scroll down until you find a series of files starting with USGS. You will likely want to use the 1:63,360 scale map if it is available. Otherwise use the 1:250,000 scale. Be sure to check the box! (There are other images and types of satellite data in here. Feel free to browse around. There is usually a popup that will tell you more about what the data is.) Page 51

12 Place Names and Landmarks Lesson Pan and zoom in to find your feature or point of interest on the topographic map. 4. Place the center of the cursor over the feature. 5. Look at the blue box in the upper left hand corner to see the Latitude and Longitude. 6. Record the decimal degree coordinates of your point in the table on page one of the worksheet. 7. Repeat steps 3-6 for the other points you have selected. Now you are ready to use these coordinates to create waypoints in your GPS or to create a CSV file for creating a GIS map! Page 52