Try the activity!

Latitude/Attitude: I bet a lot of us have attitude about our latitude! What I mean is people get used to the conditions where they live - the weather, the seaons, the plants and animals...and we start to think where we live is the best latitude. But what do you know about latitude? Try this activity.

penguinsonbus
Penguins on a bus*

Plan your own trip to Antarctica - how many miles will you need to travel? Remember that in the U.S. you need to get to the Los Angeles airport and then on to Christchurch, New Zealand. Use this website to locate air travel distances between cities. See if you have to travel as far as I did! Don't forget Beth traveled from Denver, Colorado. Did you travel further than her?

*(By the way, in case you wondered, the penguins in this picture are not real! They were decorations on top of our bus in Christchurch!)

Getting there - the start of it all!

worldmapThe Earth is HUGE and Antarctica is really far away from the U.S.! Have you ever tried to find Antarctica on a world map? Try it now. Google a world map or look around your classroom or home and see if you can find a world map that shows the whole Antarctic continent. Its not easy! You can click on the one I put here to see what I mean. Is Antarctica really a long, thin strip like that? NO WAY - that's just the 'projection' most map makers use. The best way to look at Antarctica in the world is with a globe or Google Earth.

planeThese crazy world map views do make it hard to show you our trip plan since getting to Antarctica for us meant we had to fly 'off the map!'. Yep, that's right! We flew over the Pacific Ocean, over Hawaii and on to New Zealand, which on this map meant flying right off the edge of one side and back onto the other side! Here are the crazy details...

When Beth and I were trying to get to Antarctica, we each started on different coasts. I was in New York and Beth was in Colorado. To travel to Antarctica all NSF planes depart from Christchurch, New Zealand, in the South Pacific. So first I had to fly over to Beth's side of the country - New York to Los Angeles 2451 miles (3944 km), flight time 5 hrs. and 45 mins. Then we both flew from Los Angeles to Christchurch, New Zealand, another 6906 miles (11,113 km), flight time 13 hrs. and 45 mins. Here is my travel map for this part of the journey.

to Antarctica

created using earth view

Lastly after a few weather delays we flew from Christchurch to McMurdo Station, Antarctica, another 2415 miles (3864 km), flight time 5 hrs. Here is the travel map for the last leg! Seriously, that's a lot of miles, and a lot of flight time! Add it up how many hours did I spend in the air?______

When you do a lot of traveling its fun to think about latitude. Go to 'Try this activity' and test your 'latitude aptitude' and see if you can develop a 'latitude attitude' about Antarctica!

Student Activity Worksheet

Download response sheet word pdf