SEPTEMBER 2022
Latitude for travelling and navigate
Calculate the latitude of the place determining the height of the Sun at noon (experience 1) and, if possible, determine the altitude of the pole or the Polar star (experience 2) and record the results of each experience in the following Table of Results:
Teacher’s Name
Katerina Roumpi (Math teacher) and Dimitris Psarianos (Physics teacher) School were taking place the experiment
1st Experimental Junior High School of Maroussi City and country
Athens, Greece
Real Latitude N 38.05850° Day, month, hour=might day*
Friday, 23 9 22, 13.17
Solar Declination +001113
Latitude by the Sun 90°-51°(the measurement)=39° Day, month, hour= Latitude with the pole **
1st Experimental Junior High School of Maroussi Experimental Measurement of Geographical Latitude of the school Address Plastira 40, Maroussi
https://www.suncalc.org/#/38.0585,23.8079,19/2022.09.14/19:45/1/3
Friday 23 September 2022 and time 13.15 to 13.20
Katerina Roumpi and Dimitris Psarianos with the A3 class (age 12 13)
Initially we discussed with the students of A3 class what longitude and latitude mean, what is the angle of incidence of the sun's rays on the earth, the thread of the level, the equinox and when the sun is at the highest point of its orbit. The Physics professor, Mr. Psarianos, had already shown them from the www.suncalc.org site the movement of the sun over time and had prepared them for the experimental measurement of the latitude that we would do.
We built the improvised measuring instrument according to the instructions with a wooden board protractor and on this particular day Friday 23rd September we anxiously waited for the right time to come and we wish it was sunny because in the previous days
when we did test measurements the weather was not suitable and the meteorological predictions were ominous. At 12.30 the sun came out and we were very happy! At 13.05 the sun was hidden and the disappointment was great. At 13.10 the sun appeared again and we literally all ran to the yard to do the measurement. In the next few minutes, with the sun sometimes hiding and sometimes coming out behind the clouds, we managed to place the measuring instrument in a suitable position, for the sun's rays to pass through the straw and for the level thread to stop at 39 degrees. We made sure that the shadow of the protractor was parallel to that of the thread and we rotated the protractor slightly until the bright spot on the tip of the straw was visible to be in the direction of the rays. A child would put his hand (his fingernail) on the end of the straw so that we could see the bright spot. The process was interesting and the test measurements we made in the previous days gave the students the opportunity to experience what it means to experiment, what it means to have suitable condi tions and possible measurement errors.
