Have fun using a compass.
In the bottom right-hand corner of the Globe Spotter world map is a compass to guide children in their animal quest. But that is not all, in the free guide book that is gifted with every world map, we explain the concept of hemispheres.
Fun and accessible for children from the age of three until their early teens, this interactive map is an open world and an open quest, every child will learn something, even how to read a map compass.
THE WAY WE DIVIDE THE GLOBE.
Did you know that the word “hemisphere” comes from the two words “hemi” and “sphere”. The word “hemi” means half and the word “sphere”…well you know what that means!
To help locate things and places on the globe, men have divided the earth into sections, into halves.
We looked at latitudes and longitudes in a previous post and learned about the Equator and Greenwich.
The Equator divides the globe into the Northern hemisphere and Southern hemisphere.
Greenwich divides the globe into the Western hemisphere and the Eastern hemisphere.
A compass has sections like the globe.
NORTH, EAST, SOUTH, WEST.
The compass on this children's world map shows which way is North, South, West and East.
It’s easy to imagine the Equator and Greenwich running through the map and by doing so you see that:
- The top left side of the world map is the North-Western hemisphere
- The top right side of the world map is the North-Eastern hemisphere
- The bottom left side represents the South-Western hemisphere
- And bottom right side is the South-Eastern hemisphere
Once these basic principles are understood, it will make it much easier for children to use a live compass. They’ll understand the location of places with respect to the cardinal points.
Finding animals as map compass practice.
Some of the exercises that come in the free world map guide book include locating animals using latitudes, longitudes and the cardinal points.
Here for example, we give away that the Goliath bird eater tarantula is to be found at 10° North and 60°West.
Children will need to locate this animal to then sketch it in their Bestiary booklet.
And did you know that the Goliath bird eater tarantula is the largest spider on the planet?