Why do we use latitude and longitude for kids?

Teaching fundamental concepts such as latitude and longitude can be an opportunity for interactive and adventurous learning. Educators can relate these geographical concepts to students in ways that make them popular and useful; finding your favorite city, or knowing exactly where someone is located, can become an empowering ability. It is important for teachers to incorporate hands-on tools and devices for latitude-longitude lessons to be effectively instilled.

Begin by offering your learner basic knowledge of the Earth's degrees and definitions of latitude and longitude, two important concepts of geography that frequently work together.

Just as a circle has 360 degrees all the way around, the Earth can also be divided into 360 degrees. Latitude measures those degrees that run east and west, from left to right. Longitude measures degrees running north and south, top to bottom.

Be sure to mention the bases of latitude and longitude: the Equator and the Prime Meridian. The Equator is found at 0 degrees latitude, while the Prime Meridian (found in Greenwich, England) is located at 0 degrees longitude. Using these two positions can help students find any location in the world.

Use a globe and invite students to find their favorite locations. They can discover that Paris, for instance, is located at 48 degrees north and 2 degrees east. Ask them to put their fingers on Paris' spot on the globe and see the map's actual markings for latitude and longitude. Most maps mark every 10 degrees, so encourage your students to take guesses with their own eyes at pinpointing locations, like Paris, not found directly on the degree marks.

Head to Brainpop.com for an easy-to-understand video on latitude and longitude. Visit Google Earth for an interactive approach to this geographical principle.

Stage a treasure hunt with GPS devices. Pick four to five locations around the school, home, park, or other suitable setting, and hide an object in one of them. Tell participants the latitude-longitude coordinates of these locations and invite them to find the treasure using them.

For Kids: The earth is a globe. The system of latitude and longitude is a man-made system for finding a location anywhere on the surface of the globe. Latitudes are imaginary lines drawn around the globe from side to side, horizonally. Longitudes are imaginary lines drawn up and down, vertically.

Latitude: Latitude starts at the Equator. The imaginary line that circles the globe (the earth) at the Equator is called zero. Numbers go up and down from there. Latitude is not measured in miles, but in degrees between ninety and zero in both hemispheres (northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere.) So there are only 180 imaginary lines going around the globe, plus the line for zero that circles the Equator.

Longitude is a series of 360 imaginary lines that circle the earth from Pole to Pole. The line that runs from Pole to Pole and measures zero in longitude runs though London, England. 

You can find any point on the globe if you know the latitude and the longitude of that point, or its coordinates.

This may sound a bit confusing. First, watch a short, fun video for kids, and then play some games. Once you do, I think you will agree that latitude and longitude are handy things to understand and use, even if they are imaginary.

Longitude and Latitude (video)

Can you find the hidden treasures? Latitude and Longitude game

Maps and More Maps, Longitude and Latitude game

Coordinates online game

Time Zones Game

Prime Meridian, Equator, Hemispheres

For Teachers

Latitude and Longitude homework sheet, free from TPT

Prime Meridian, Equator, Hemispheres lesson plans and activities

Free Presentations in PowerPoint format about Geography

We can accurately know the position of any place on earth with the help of two imaginary lines running across the earth’s surface, called Latitudes and Longitudes. The meeting place where these lines cross each other is known as co-ordinates.

How are Latitudes and Longitudes measured?

• The Greeks and various people over time, have been credited with calculating the circumference of the earth and include Plato and Archimedes. But the accepted circumference as we know today (40,075 km) has been accurately(with 1% error) calculated by Aryabhata from India(Born in 476 BC) and Eratosthenes from Greece (Born in 270 BC).
• The imaginary line running around the middle of a spherical earth is known as the equator. Latitudes are horizontal, imaginery lines, running around parallelly and at, equal distances above and below the equator. The distance between them is calculated at degrees, minutes and seconds.
• The equator is at 0 degrees.
• The earth is divided into 181 latitudes.
• Longitudes are imaginery lines running from the North Pole to the South Pole at the earth’s circumference. The lines of longitudes are often called meridians.
• The earth is divided into 360 longitudes.
• Greenwich is the designated 0 degrees longitude, since 1884. It was decided after a vote that involved 25 nations. The reason being the Royal Observatory was involved in generating accurate navigational information for 100s of years.

Why are Latitudes and Longitudes important?

1. For centuries man has been venturing on journeys of discovery into the unknown seas. Latitudes and longitudes help in navigational charts, as the sea has no defined markers. Traveller and navigators through time have used the North Star or the Southern Cross Constellation to accurately pinpoint their position, depending which side of the equator they were on. Latitudes and Longitudes helped prepare maps, based on the positions of constellations.
2. The latitudes and longitudes help us set time zones for the planet, based on earth’s rotation on it’s axis.
3. The latitudes and longitudes help us locate an exact place on earth, based on the point where the latitudes and longitudes meet.
4. Latitudes and longitudes help us predict weather and climatic changes, like for instance, the path of a cyclone or a storm.
5. Our modern day Global Positioning Systems(GPS) are configured using latitudes and longitudes for satellite mapping of the earth and are used for tracking and route mapping.

Halley meridian and Bradley meridian

There are already two other meridian lines running through Greenwich, which were used before the 1884 conference, in Washington.

The Halley meridian was defined in 1721, by the English astronomer Edmond Halley, while the Bradley meridian of 1750, is still used as the standard definition of zero longitude in modern Ordnance Survey maps, which began in 1801, and have not moved onto the new system.

Students look at lines of latitude and longitude on United States and world maps, discuss why these lines are helpful, and identify landmarks with similar latitude and longitude.

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Lines of longitude run between the North Pole and the South Pole. These lines are also called meridians. Like lines of latitude, meridians are measured in degrees, minutes, and seconds.

The north-south line that marks 0° longitude passes through Greenwich, England. This is called the Greenwich, or prime, meridian. Greenwich was chosen for the prime meridian because when the system of latitude and longitude was established Great Britain was a world leader in exploration and map making. Greenwich was the home of Britain’s royal observatory.

Other lines of longitude describe positions east and west of the prime meridian. Lines of longitude east of the prime meridian are numbered from 1° to 179° east (E). Lines of longitude west of the prime meridian are numbered from 1° to 179° west (W). The 180th meridian, or 180°, is the line of longitude exactly opposite the prime meridian.