Study Notes Social Studies - Quiz Thursday for 5/6, Friday for Grade 6

·         Locate places on a map given the coordinates of longitude and latitude

·         Identify coordinates of longitude and latitude when given a location.

The equator is a line of latitude.  Lines of latitude form east-west circles around the globe.  They are also called parallels.

Lines of longitude run north-south.  The Prime Meridian passes through Greenwich, England. Other lines of longitude measure the distance in degrees east or west of the prime meridian. 

Universal time – the time as measured on the prime meridian

International Date Line – the imaginary line of longitude on the opposite side of Earth from the prime meridian.  The line on Earth’s surface that is internationally agreed upon as the place where each new calendar day begins.

Time zones - the 24 divisions off Earth’s surface that are used to determine the local time

Sir Sandford Fleming introduced a system of  times zones in 1879 to eliminate confusion of every community adopting its own local time.

Cartography is map making. Early map making was lined to astronomy.  Navigators used instruments such as the sextant to determine their location.  A sextant was used to find latitude by measuring the angle between the horizon and a star, a planet or the moon. 

The sextant is still used today because it does not depend upon electricity or machinery such as satellites.  A marine chronometer is essential to calculating longitude. 

Vinicius lives in Brazil.  His hometown is Belem and e lives in Rio de Janario.

An ecosystem is the interaction and relationships between living and non-living beings in a particular environment. 

Igapo is a forested area that are regularly flooded.  Deforestation is the widespread cutting and removal of trees.  Brazil’s government is taking steps to protect the rainforest from too much development.

Migration to cities is called urbanization.  Favelas are the slum of the city.

The Amazon River carries more water than any other river in the world.  It pours approximately 175 million litres of fresh water into the ocean every second.  The Amazon basin is the land drained by the Amazon River.