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Lissa
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| Posted: March 14 2006 at 11:04am | IP Logged
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Just as we've been sharing our assigned classes' photoperiods each week, let's now share the longitude of our mystery classes. Should we start sharing guesses about the locations, too? Or do you want to give everyone a chance to guess first (based on the longitudes and the graphs we've all been keeping), and then we can start discussing the possibilities?
Class #1: Longitude is 21.25 degrees. We think we know the region but there are lots of little countries squished together there, so we haven't narrowed it down to a city quite yet...
Oh we are having such fun with this!
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Mary G
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| Posted: March 14 2006 at 11:24am | IP Logged
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Class #6: Longitude is 172.75E -- not a whole lot of cities in the region, so we might have a pretty good clue.
Lissa -- when me and mine did the numbers for all the classes (since #6 was done for us) -- we got 23.25E for your class. What did we do wrong? 
Also, let's wait on the guessing just becuase we have so much more info to come. Our is pretty easy but others might feel like they don't know what they're doing if they can't guess theirs yet....just my $.02.
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MaryG
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: March 14 2006 at 11:59am | IP Logged
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Our longitude for # 9 is 49.25 degrees West, or 49 degrees, 15 minutes (remember to base your minutes on 60, not 100, if you are converting). We can share our city guess if you'd like, but will wait to see what others say, since Mary G wants to wait.
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Lissa
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| Posted: March 14 2006 at 12:39pm | IP Logged
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Mary G. wrote:
| Lissa -- when me and mine did the numbers for all the classes (since #6 was done for us) -- we got 23.25E for your class. What did we do wrong? |
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I dunno, it could easily be our mistake! We just double-checked, though, and came up with the same answer (21.25E), so if we're doing something wrong we're doing it consistently. 
GMT sunrise time for Class #1 is 4:38. (Box A)
Greenwich sunrise time: 6:03 (Box B)
Difference between the two: 1 hr 25 minutes (box C)
equals 85 minutes (Box D)
85 divided by 4 equals 21.25.
Did we mess up the math anywhere? 
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Mary G
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| Posted: March 14 2006 at 1:08pm | IP Logged
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Lissa,
As my ds would say "my bad" -- I had 4:30 instead of 4:38 so I was off my 8 minutes. I wanted to make sure we had the right data -- I wasn't assuming you messed up.... I'll use it as a "teachable moment" as 8 minutes changes the location greatly!
THANKS
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MaryG
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Lissa
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| Posted: March 14 2006 at 1:45pm | IP Logged
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Wow, that IS a significant difference for such a relatively small difference in time!
Oh, this whole thing has been fascinating. We spent almost two hours absorbed in it this morning!
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momwise
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| Posted: March 14 2006 at 1:49pm | IP Logged
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We think ours is 155.75 W. Most of you will be able to figure out what body of land that is
Now that I've posted a whole explanation of how to find latitudes, how did you all find the exact latitude and not an estimation?
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Lissa
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| Posted: March 14 2006 at 3:02pm | IP Logged
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Lissa wrote:
| Wow, that IS a significant difference for such a relatively small difference in time! |
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LOL--I just had to add a postscript to this. I said to Kate, "Wow, just an eight minute difference in sunrise time made a difference of two whole degrees of longitude!"
She gave me a look of affectionate pity and said, "Well, of course, Mommy--each degree of longitude represents four minutes, remember?"
Doh! I'm glad the KIDS are retaining the details we're learning here. My brain is one big sieve these days...
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Lissa
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| Posted: March 14 2006 at 3:18pm | IP Logged
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momwise wrote:
| Now that I've posted a whole explanation of how to find latitudes, how did you all find the exact latitude and not an estimation? |
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Here's what we did. Kate has been charting Alice's photoperiod as well as our own (because Alice's children are her dearest pals), and she had noticed that just as Alice's line on the chart is a little higher than ours, the Class #1 line is a bit higher than Alice's. Looking at the globe, we chose a few cities north of Alice and looked up their latitude and their sunrise/sunset times for March 6th. When we found a city with the same photoperiod as our mystery class, we knew we'd found right latitude. We tried out three or four cities before we pegged it exactly right.
The trial and error process was lots of fun--first we found a city whose March 6th photoperiod was one minute *longer* than our mystery class's, then we found a city with a photoperiod one minute *shorter.* This helped us narrow the correct latitude down to within one degree.
Of course, we were doing all this with US cities, and from our longitude clue we knew that our Mystery Class is somewhere *east* of Greenwich, not west. But once we figured out the approximate latitude, we were able to zero in on a certain city that we think must be the right one! (Or quite near it.) It was quite an exciting morning.
I think tomorrow we're going to start working up guesses for all the other mystery classes.
BTW, during the trial and error part of our latitude search we were using that same U.S. sunrise/sunset site that we use every Monday for the hometown lookup.
I have to say that part of what has been so fun about this project is doing it with all of you. For one thing, I doubt we'd have been able to keep up (through stomach bugs and other complications) if we'd had to do all the calculations ourselves. Some weeks Kate has enjoyed doing the extra math, just to compare her numbers to all of yours, but other weeks we've been so glad to be sharing data as part of a group.
But also, it's just such fun checking in with you all and exploring the great links you've shared, and having friends who are just as excited about cracking the mysteries as we are! Thanks so much, all of you, for joining in the fun.
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Mary G
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Lissa wrote:
| But also, it's just such fun checking in with you all and exploring the great links you've shared, and having friends who are just as excited about cracking the mysteries as we are! Thanks so much, all of you, for joining in the fun. |
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well, you're welcome even though we don't do much for #6 AND I thought y'all had added wrong -- but we too are having a really good time and the kids may not be "getting it" all, they'll remember this for a long time (and they're helping me learn......)-- so you can teach an old dog new tricks 
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Lissa
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| Posted: March 14 2006 at 3:52pm | IP Logged
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Mary G. wrote:
| well, you're welcome even though we don't do much for #6 AND I thought y'all had added wrong |
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Bahahaha!!!!!
Yeah, really, you drew the good straw, didn't you? If only I'd known, I'd have assigned MYSELF the easy one. 
I've learned a lot, too, Mary. (Though obviously not as much as my kids.) For one thing, I FINALLY have it straight which way is latitude and which is longitude. And another: I don't think it had ever really registered with me exactly WHAT the equinox is. Seeing all those lines on the chart zooming in to the 12 hr line has really brought it to life!
Also, being aware of how much extra daylight we're getting each week really made the gray weeks of late winter go by quickly!
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Lissa
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| Posted: March 14 2006 at 3:59pm | IP Logged
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momwise wrote:
| We think ours is 155.75 W. Most of you will be able to figure out what body of land that is |
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Gwen, you're class #3, right?
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Sarah
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| Posted: March 14 2006 at 6:05pm | IP Logged
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I hope I did this right.  #8 - 51.5 E
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momwise
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| Posted: March 14 2006 at 9:38pm | IP Logged
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momwise wrote:
| We think ours is 155.75 W. |
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Oops. That should have been 155deg 45' W. Yep Lissa, we're #3.....I think you got it
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MaryM
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| Posted: March 15 2006 at 3:04am | IP Logged
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Mystery Class #7: 59 degrees 15 minutes E (59.25 degrees)
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Jen L.
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| Posted: March 15 2006 at 10:02am | IP Logged
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Mystery Class #4: 57.75 W
(We think!)
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kathleenmom
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Class #5 8.25 E
Kathleen
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tracym
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| Posted: March 16 2006 at 1:37am | IP Logged
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I hope ours is right also- Mystery class 10- 48.25 E
Tracy M.
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Lissa
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| Posted: March 16 2006 at 8:31am | IP Logged
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MaryM wrote:
| Mystery Class #7: 59 degrees 15 minutes E (59.25 degrees) |
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My turn to ask where we're going wrong! Kate worked out the longitudes for all the classes, and her answer for #7 is slightly different--58 degrees 15 minutes. I can't for the life of me figure out where her mistake is...help!
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MichelleW
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| Posted: March 16 2006 at 12:00pm | IP Logged
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We have been doing this independently, and just to throw another monkey wrench into the mix...we got 58 degrees 50 minutes for #7.
Michelle
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4Real Forums : Exploring God's Creation in Nature and Science
Topic: Mystery Classes:Let’s post our longitudes
