Courses

Join us as we play a global game of hide-and-seek using science and geography based on the 2016 and 2020 Mystery Class clues as devised by Journey North.  Follow photoperiod clues to search for secret sites around the world. Track sunlight to solve a mystery – and discover the reasons for seasons along the way.

The details:

The course focuses on learning and then applying information at the crossroads between geography and science (with some math too). We will be exploring Earth’s rotation, revolution, and axial tilt in order to explore what day length (i.e. photoperiod) measured over time can tell us about the location of a place on the Earth’s surface as well as the cause and progression of the seasons. We will explore the relationship between latitude and day length. We will explore the relationship between longitude and time zones – including learning how to calculate the longitude of a location based on its photoperiod on the Equinox. We explore how the photoperiod changes differently over the semester depending on which hemisphere the place is in. Each week they will be using math skills to calculate photoperiods. I will be guiding them through a process to help those for whom this is a challenge and they will be allowed to use calculators for the parts that can be entered into the calculator. They will be graphing the results of the photoperiod calculations in order to make predictions about the location of the mystery sites. Throughout these explorations, they will be using critical thinking skills to apply and decipher the information to come closer to figuring out the location of the places. Towards the end of the process, they will be given clues about the cultural geography of the place. They will use these to practice using their internet search skills to see if they can narrow down the place that all of their clues have led to. If they have an atlas, they may also apply their atlas mapping skills. Once they have discovered the locations of the mystery sites, we will spend some time exploring some of those places in more depth – both the cultural and physical geography – with photographs, descriptions, and more.