ICT student textbook/The globe on your table with Marble

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ICT student textbook
Your desktop atlas with KGeography The globe on your table with Marble Concluding remarks

Marble is a digital atlas. It provides the physical geography of the Earth. It does not provide the political geography (with political borders dividing the continents into countries etc).

Objectives

  1. Understanding how the interactive environment of Marble, as a digital atlas
  2. Playing with the features to explore and learn
  3. Explore Geography concepts with Geogebra

Activities

Playing with the globe

  1. You can see the Earth as a 3-D model and explore different maps provided. You can open the "Atlas" map to see the different continents and oceans. You can rotate the Earth to see the entire globe. You can simulate the rotation of the earth by moving the Globe from left (west) to right (east). You can use the mouse to increase the zoom to see a place in more detail. You can move the Atlas to see India and increase the zoom to see the cities and towns in Telangana. Pick up any country of your choice. Try to move the Atlas to locate that region (though you will not see the country name, you can locate the cities and towns, rivers and mountains of that region).
  2. Chapter 2 of your class 6 text book is 'Globe - a model of the Earth'. Can you relate the activities in that chapter to the Marble globe?
    1. Identify the land masses and water masses. Are they equal? Are they equally distributed in the northern and southern hemispheres?

Latitudes and Longitudes

  1. Increase the scale by moving the 'navigation slider' to increase the map size. See that latitudes are 'parallel' to one another.
  2. Move the earth from west to east to simulate the rotation of the earth. Move the Earth 'top down' and 'bottom up' also upside down to show Arctic Circle in the bottom. Are 'north' and 'south' only conventions or are they 'up' and 'down'.
  3. Are Latitudes lines? Are they parallel lines?
  4. Are Longitudes lines? Are they parallel lines? By increasing the scale by moving the 'navigation slider', you can increase the map size and see that longitudes are not 'parallel' to one another, but meet at the poles.
  5. Why are latitudes full circles while longitudes are semi-circles?
  6. How many time zones does India have? How many does USA have? why is there a difference?
  7. If the earth was not rotating on its axis,would there be any need for time zones and longitudes?
  8. If the earth was not revolving around the sun, would there be any need for time zones and longitudes?
  9. List as many differences between latitude and longitude as possible. Explain these differences

Precipitation (rainfall), weather and climate

  1. You can see the 'Precipitation (July) map. Is there any pattern in the rain heavy zones? Does it depend on the Latitudes?
    1. (tip - Is there more rain in the northern hemisphere than southern hemisphere? Within the northern hemisphere, is it heavier in some parts, are these related to the latitude of that place?)
    2. Why is the rain heavy in the south west coastal part of India (including coastal Karnataka)? Why is there a vertical strip where there is very less rain?
    3. While North India around tropic of cancer has good rainfall, why is the same tropic of cancer region in Africa without any rain at all? Tip - This is the Sahara desert region. Is the lack of rain the effect of it being a desert or is it vice versa?)
  2. See the 'Temperature (July) map.
    1. Where is the weather hotter - northern or southern hemisphere?
    2. In the northern hemisphere, where is it the hottest? Why?
    3. Why is it hotter around tropic of cancer in Africa and West Asia, compared to the same latitude in India?
  3. See the 'Temperature (December) map.
    1. Where is the weather hotter - northern or southern hemisphere?
    2. Why is the southern hemisphere not as hot in December as the northern hemisphere is in July?
    3. In December, the northern hemisphere has larger areas which are colder, compared to Southern hemisphere during July. (or the range of temperatures in northern hemisphere is much more than the southern hemisphere). Why?

Recording the latitude and longitude of your own school and publishing it

  1. Mobile phones have software application to record the latitude and longitude information of a place. The "OSM Tracker" app on a Android phone can record the 'latitude longitude' information about a place, and even record a track, such as a road. Try recording using this on a cell phone. You can also upload this information on a digital map on the Internet such as the OpenStreetMap

Basically try and identify and discuss with your classmates and your teacher, what are the various factor that affect weather/climate of a place. Which of these factors - latitude, vegetation/forest area, coastal region v/s hinterland (distance from sea/water body), altitude, land mass vs water body affect weather and climate of a region?

Discuss the weather and climate in your own location / region. What are the causes for the weather / climate patterns?

You can Learn Marble and study the other maps provided and try and understand other geography concepts.