Good day learners. I hope you are all well today.
I hope you are all excited cause
today we will be covering a very fun topic in geography, map skills. We will
specifically look at the continents and we are also going to learn about compass
directions. Basically, we are all going to be like treasure hunters for today and we’re
going to find places on a map and follow compass directions.
So let us start. You all would of learnt about the 7 continents last year. Does anyone
remember their names?
The earth is made up of 7 continents. Their names are Africa, Asia, Europe, South
America, North America, Australia and Antarctica. The earth also has 5 oceans. Let
us look at a picture of the world map. This is a world map. It is a way of showing all
the continents and oceans of the earth on a flat sheet of paper. Here we can clearly
see the 7 continents and 5 oceans. As we can all see by looking at the world map,
Asia is the largest continent. We are in Africa the second biggest continent. It is
made up of 54 countries and South Africa is found at the bottom of this continent.
Africa has an ocean on either side. It has the Indian Ocean on the left and the
Atlantic Ocean on the right. A long time ago, around 175 million years ago all the
continents existed as a single land mass as we can see here. This land mass was
named Pangea. Due to the tectonic plates moving, Pangea a once solid land mass
broke apart. As a result separate land masses were formed. These are our current 7
continents. You would notice that this is the reason they can fit together like a
puzzle.
Now we are going to look at lines of latitude and longitude. These are all imaginary
lines that run across the earth. At the top of the earth we find the north pole and at
the bottom we find the south pole. To firstly look at lines of latitude. These are
imaginary lines that run horizontally across the earth from the north pole to the south
pole. We cannot actually see these lines but we use them as important points when
locating places on earth. The main or zero degree line of latitude is called the
equator. It divides the earth into northern and southern hemispheres. These lines are
measured in degrees north and south of the equator. At 90 degrees north the
furthest point we find the north pole and similarly with the south pole. At 23.5 degree
north we have the tropic of cancer and at 23.5 degree south we have the tropic of
Capricorn. These are the hottest regions on earth due to the sun’s rays being the
shortest here. Lines of longitude are vertical imaginary lines that run across the earth
from west to east. The main line is called the Greenwich meridian. Lines of longitude
are important in calculating time differences between countries.
Next we are going to look at the compass. Some of you may have seen a compass
and know what it is used for but for most of you that don’t. The compass is a tool we
use to navigate. It has directions on it and points us in a direction so we can find a
particular place. The directions on a compass never change. North will always be
forward and will never change no matter which way we look at a map. There are 4
main compass points north, south, east and west. We can sometimes confused
these directions so to make things easier we can create acronyms to help us
remember. An example is using one like never eat sour worms. Here the first
alphabet represents a direction from the top of the compass moving down clockwise.
In grade 5 however we look at 8 compass points. Don’t be frightened by this. These
additional points are simply those found in between the 4 main points. Between north
and east we have north east, between south and east we have south east, between
south and west we have south west and finally between north and west we have
north west. These directions are named according to whether they point up or down
and left or right. We can see an example of a compass with 8 points here.
Next we are going to do a small activity to familiarise ourselves with compass
directions. We are going to place a compass on Africa and I am going to call out
places on the map and you’re going to tell me which direction they are in from Africa.
Remember we are in Africa and the compass cannot move. If we look at a few
examples, if I say Europe, it will be north of Africa. If we look at Asia it would be north
east of Africa.
Finally a fun class activity to do. Everyone is going to break up into groups of 5. This
will be sort of a treasure hunt. Each team will get a map and a set of instructions to
follow. Everyone will use the map and the instructions with compass directions to
find hidden items. The groups will also return with these items and have a chance to
answer additional questions to earn extra points. The team with the quickest time to
find all the items and the most points will win the challenge.