NEWS BREAK

Article: How tall is ? For , it’s touchy question

Section: MAIN, A3

Sunday's News Break selects an article from Sunday, February 4, 2018, of The Seattle Times print replica for an in-depth reading of the news. Read the selected article and answer the attached study questions.

You are encouraged to modify this lesson to fit the needs of your students. For example, some classrooms may be able to use this as a worksheet and others might need to ask and answer the questions in a small group or larger, class discussion.

Please be sure to preview all NIE content before using it in your classroom to ensure it is appropriate for all of your students.

Standards:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.1

• Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.2

• Determine the main idea of a text and explain how it is supported by key details; summarize the text.

Objectives:

Students will read an article on Nepal and the team that will measure Mt. Everest. They will learn that Nepal is a poor country and debate whether the money should be used to help their people instead of doing another measurement of the mountain? Students will discuss whether the mountain will continue to change, as time goes on?

Pre-Reading Discussion:

• Do you recognize this mountain? Which one is it? What can you infer? • What do you think the article will be about? Are there clues in the picture?

Vocabulary Building:

Read this sentence, what do you think the highlighted words mean using context clues? A context clue is a word or words that are hints and refers to the sources of information outside of words that readers may use to predict the identities and meanings of unknown words.

“A team hired by Sir George Everest, a former surveyor general of , assembled near India’s border with Nepal. It was there that , a young Indian mathematician, and a group of so-called human computers, used triangulation to collect data on the mountain, known then as Peak XV.”

Write your guess and then look up the definition and write it below your guess. How close did you come to the correct definition?

Triangulation Guess:

Triangulation Definition:

Comprehension Questions:

1. In the past, geologists have disagreed about what to include in their calculations. What were some of their disagreements regarding? 2. Then there is the challenge of geography. What are the main challenges? 3. Today, Everest’s height is widely recognized as ______feet. 4. But teams from around the world, including China, Denmark, Italy, India and the United States, have come up with other calculations, which have sometimes strayed a little bit higher, or a little bit lower, than that figure. Italy, in 1992, lopped 7 feet off the standard height, measuring it at 29,022 feet. In 1999, a measurement by U.S. scientists pushed the peak a little higher, saying the mountain reached ______feet. 5. These measurement expeditions have typically excluded whom? 6. What is happening for the first time in Nepal? 7. First measurement: A team hired by Sir George Everest, a former surveyor general of India, assembled near India’s border with Nepal. It was there that Radhanath Sikdar, a young Indian mathematician, and a group of so-called human computers, used triangulation to collect data on the mountain, known then as Peak XV.

Folklore has it that when Sikdar finished calculating his findings in 1852, he made a beeline for the office of a superior stationed in the foothills of the and announced that he had “discovered the highest mountain in the world.”

In ______, the height of Peak XV was recorded at 29,002 feet, a number remarkably close to the height recognized by climbing bodies today. But Sikdar’s contributions were pushed to the footnotes, and Peak XV was eventually renamed in honor of George Everest.

8. Roger Bilham, a geologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said Everest’s location in the zone of compression between southern and India. What does that mean? 9. What is the difference between how Everest was measured in the 19th century and the way it can be measured now? 10. To prepare for the country’s own expedition, Nepali surveyors will collect measurements this month along the country’s southern plains, where they plan to calculate sea level. A team of Sherpas is also being trained to bring a GPS receiver to the summit. The cost to measure the mountain is estimated at $______.

Discussion Questions (small/large groups), Journal Prompts or Essay Questions:

• Do you think a poor country should spend $250,000 to measure their mountain? Why or why not? • Why is it so important to Nepal’s people and their economy? • Do you think their final measurement will be similar to all the other countries that have measured? Why or why not? • Do you think GPS and modern technology will create a more accurate measurement? Why or why not?

“Mount Everest is our treasure,” said Buddhi Narayan Shrestha, former director general of Nepal’s Department of Survey.

• “What will happen if foreign experts continue to reduce the height of our mountain without us participating?” What is your opinion on this question?

• What do you know about Mt. Everest?

Alan Arnette, a well-known mountaineer, said any measurement of the summit is still “a snapshot in time,” with different levels of ice accumulation causing variations in the height. He questioned whether the expedition was worth what it would cost Nepal.

“As a mountaineer, I would like to see the results,” Arnette said, “but as someone who supports the Nepal people, the money could be spent on jobs, food, clean air and other programs more important to the health of the nation.”

• What side are you on? Would it be interested to know the measurement, based on Nepal’s team of experts or should the money be used to help their people? • Do you think the mountain will continue to change, as time goes on? Do you think it’s just a “snapshot in time,” as suggested by Arnette? Why or why not?

News Break is posted to the Web on Monday. Please share this NIE News Break program with other teachers. To sign-up for the print replica for your class, please register on-line or call 206/652-6290 or toll-free 1-888/775-2655. Copyright © 2018 The Seattle Times Company

Newsbreak Answer Key: February 4, 2018

Pre-Reading Discussion:

Answers will vary

Vocabulary Building:

Triangulation: (in surveying) The tracing and measurement of a series or network of triangles in order to determine the distances and relative positions of points spread over a territory or region, especially by measuring the length of one side of each triangle and deducing its angles and the length of the other two sides by observation from this baseline.

Comprehension Answers:

1. Should the summit’s snowcap be included? Or should surveyors drill down to the peak’s rock base? What about the recent earthquakes in Nepal, which geologists believe shrunk the mountain by about 3 centimeters, or a little more than 1 inch? Or the fact that wind speed affects how much snow covers the summit at any given time? 2. Reaching the summit of Everest is only possible a few weeks each year, and measuring the mountain’s height from sea level has presented difficulties: Landlocked Nepal is a long way from the nearest shore. 3. 29,029 feet 4. 29,035 feet 5. Experts from Nepal, which shares the mountain with China and is one of the poorest countries in Asia. 6. Nepali surveyors are limiting intervention from foreign powers and sending a team to the summit to settle the height question for themselves. In addition to the science, national pride is at stake. 7. 1856 8. This means it sinks during earthquakes and rises between them. A major earthquake in 1934 lowered the mountain 63 centimeters, or about 2 feet, according to data provided by Bilham. 9. In the 19th century, the height of Everest was calculated by measuring the angles between the top of the mountain and points on the ground whose positions relative to the average height of the sea were already known.

Now, surveyors place a GPS receiver on the summit ice for an hour, and mathematically calculate the height of the sea from satellites and measurements of gravity at the base. 10. $250,000

Discussion Questions (small/large groups), Journal Prompts or Essay Questions: Answers will vary