Team Topo
To read a map we have to orient the north on the compass rose of the map to point in the same direction as the north on the ground. This is done to accurately reference objects on the map to objects on the earth's surface. To better understand how we find which direction north is, we made our own compasses with needles, cork, and a small dish of water (see picture below). We compared our homemade compass directions with a factory made compass and found that ours were just as accurate and the real thing!
Another project we completed was taking a topogrpahic profile of a small creek located at Hamton Hills Park. We used hand levels and survey rods to measure the elevation changes as one crosses the creek. We the plotted the data in the Microsoft Excell program to show the shape of the creek we measured. The team worked hard that day and the graph above is the profile we came up with. Great job everybody!
This day's task was one of the most fun we had
as a team. After learning how to read topographic maps, Matt and
Jordan challenged the team's new skills by showing them a land feature on a
two dimension map and had the team build the land feature in the sand.
