Let's Get Down to Earth... Science - Show Notes for show #1

Well, I certainly hope you enjoyed the podcast and were able to come away from it with a better understanding of our unit on Earth's shape and topographic maps. In this episode we took a closer look at the fact that Earth is not perfectly spherical, but is in fact an oblate spheroid. Take a look at this site for more information on this idea (http://regentsprep.org/Regents/earthsci/units/introduction/oblate.cfm). We also looked at evidence supporting the idea that Earth is nearly spherical. Eratosthenes' contribution to science in calculating Earth's circumference was also explored. Look here for more information (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes). We also looked at how measurements of latitude and longitude are made and read. Look here for more information (http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Slatlong.htm).
The podcast then turned to a closer look at reading and interpreting USGS topographic maps. Here are a couple of decent website that look at this in much more detail (http://topomaps.usgs.gov/ and www.topozone.com).
Study hard! Good luck on the testing!

Mr. Breed
10/31/06