©2012 P Gersmehl Teachers may copy for use in their classrooms. Contact [email protected] regarding permission any other use. Gersmehl Teachers ©2012 P Where is the Middle? Investigating How Maps Can Change Global Facts B Siberia A Europe North Central P Asia America T China Y M Egypt India V Africa H N S W E South S America Australia C It is impossible to show the round earth on flat paper without bending, stretching, or changing the size of some things. Background. Definition: a Great Circle is the shortest route for an airplane to fly between two places on the earth. To find the Great Circle between two places on a globe, stretch a piece of string tightly while you hold it on both places. Then observe the places under the string. For example, when you stretch a string from Miami, Florida (M on the map) to Tokyo, Japan (T), you discover that the airplane would fly along the dotted line on the map above. It goes much closer to Alaska (A) than to Hawai‛i (H)! (That does not look like the shortest distance on the map, because no flat map can show the round earth perfectly.) 1. Use a string and a globe to investigate the Great Circle route that goes from Portugal (P, home of many famous explorers) to Singapore (S, an important trading port). Circle how an airplane would fly between those places: over southern Europe and Turkey (the dashed line) over the Horn of Africa (the dot-dash line) 2. Circle how an airplane would fly from Capetown (C, in South Africa) to the Bering Strait (B, between Russia and Alaska): over the Caspian Sea in central Asia and northern Siberia (the dashed line) over the islands of Indonesia (the dot-dash line) 3. Circle how an airplane would fly from Cape Verde (V, in West Africa) to Shanghai (Y, on the Yangtze River in China): over Egypt, in northern Africa (the dashed line) over the southern tip of India, in South Asia (the dot-dash line) .