Tracking Flight Distance and Direction Using a GPS

Jim Minerich, a 4th Grade teacher in Pequot Lakes, MN, uses a hand-held GPS (Global Positioning System) to track migrating animals with Journey North.
Minerich's students use a hand-held GPS (Global Positioning System) to assist them in determining the distance and direction that satellite tagged animals travel between data updates.

"Our classroom uses a hand-help GPS to help us determine the distance and direction that each of the satellite-collared caribou move from update to update. Our GPS has as one of its functions a distance between waypoints function. Even though we know the data is days apart, the direction is given to us in degrees. Our GPS does not use decimals so we have learned how to convert decimals to min/sec by multiplying."
(To learn to convert from decimals to min/sec see Conversions for Lat/Long.)


Track Flight Distance and Direction (Print a copy)

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