Latitudes and longitudes … oh, GOSH! What a headache! Why should we learn this? How can I teach it better? What is the USE of learning this? These are common concerns. There are many ways out of this difficulty! We found one way at MEG School, Bangalore with the GeoKids of 8th Standard.
Learning about latitudes and longitudes is extremely challenging for kids. Yet, it is fundamental to learning geography — both in the curriculum and outside it. Many teachers also dread having to teach this subject.
This need not be the case.
For some weeks, the GeoKids of 8th Standard, MEG School, Bangalore learned about latitudes and longitudes. On the first day of this project, they were all very skeptical.
Once we started and they found that they could use a flat paper grid to locate places, they were really excited!
Then, they moved to understanding latitudes and longitudes on a globe. Their enthusiasm increased greatly. They were boisterous when challenged to locate places on their globes using latitudes and longitudes.
On 17 February 2012, they put up their globes in their classroom. These still images captured their joy at this.
The pictures were taken on a mobile phone, so the clarity is not that great. However, the previous days of the project when they started with the globe have been video-recorded. This video needs to be edited. Soon, the edited video will be posted on YouTube.
Yes, the globes are made of styrofoam! Apologies to Earth for this, but we couldn’t find an eco-friendly alternative quickly enough. We will try to be more eco-friendly for future offerings of this workshop.
Here, then is the video montage . . .
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