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| Teachers'
Guide for February 23, 2007 |
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| This
Week |
The
following activities accompany this week's topic:
Longitude:
The
Million Dollar Mystery
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| Did
You Know?
When
your students conduct the Longitude Clue calculations, they
will actually be using a technique that came from a million
dollar reward challenge offered by the British Parliament,
which had the greatest minds of the 18th century racing to
solve a mystery that would change the world.
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At that time, navigating the seas was the greatest scientific
challenge of the age. Maritime disasters were a common occurrence,
and hundreds of ships and thousand of lives were regularly lost
at sea.
Why? Because there was no reliable means to know longitude after
a ship set sail and lost sight of shore. So a reward was offered
for the "first reliable method of determining longitude
on a ship at sea".
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