2011 Journey North Mystery Class ~ Our Guesses!

Last week, Adrienne and I finished working through the 10 Mystery Class clues and submitted our findings to Journey North. The results will be revealed this Friday here. This was our 4th year participating and we had 100% for all previous three years. We both hope we are correct again and can't wait to read more about each locations!

Here are our 10 guesses:

1. Perth, Australia 31

2. Guatemala City, Guatemala

3. Sanae IV, Antarctica

4. Hong Kong, People's Republic of China

5. Mafi Keng, South Africa

6. Jerusalem, Israel

7. Buenos Aires, Argentina

8. Sarnia, Canada

9. Pointe-Noire, Republic of the Congo

10. Daejeon, South Korea.

Journey North Mystery Class ~ Week Eight

This week, we received all the sunrise/sunset data for the 10 mystery classes along with the first set of interdisciplinary clues. These clues can be related to culture, geography, history, or any other facts. Adrienne and I really enjoy working with these. The first set helps us with trying to guess where in the world these classes are, usually we can figure out what continent at least, sometimes more!

Journey North Mystery Class ~ Week Seven

This week, we were given an extra set of clues in the form of sunrise time on the equinox. These are very helpful as we are able to calculate an approximate longitude for each 10 mystery classes. I set up our charts in the photo to reflect our findings so far.

The Journey North site has helpful information reguarding this new set of clues and how to calculate here (under the "longitudes clues are here!).

This Friday, we'll be receiving our first set of interdisciplinary clues. Adrienne and I love these! Now the fun will start!

Journey North Mystery Class ~ Week Six

We are about halfway through the Journey North Mystery Class project! This week, we received the Universal Time data for all 10 mystery locations as well as their regular sunrise and sunset times. These UT times will help us determine the approximate longitude for each location. When we received this data for the Equinox, we will be able to make our calculations. You can read more about these special clues at the Mystery Class page here.

Here are the charts for week six, first is the Northern Hemisphere, then my line showing the equator, followed by the Southern Hemisphere locations:

---------------------equator--------------------

Journey North Mystery Class ~ Week Five

The charts showing sunrise and sunset date up to February 28.

Adrienne working on her journal page for Week 5.

Journey North Mystery Class ~ Week Three

Journey North Mystery Class continues!

The journal page this week asked us to reflect on the data and the line graphs. We don't do line graphs, but we do our own version of graphs. Last week, we had seperated the locations between Northern and Southern Hemispheres based on who was gaining daylight, like us in the Northern Hemisphere, and who was losing daylight. This week, we were able to confirm our findings by comparing the photoperiod amounts over the previous two weeks.

The second part of the journal page asked us "how the data and graph lines show us which Mystery Class sites are north and south of your location". We looked at the data sheets a little closer this time. We started with the Northern Hemisphere ones and compared with our home location. Our opinion is that #8 is the only one north of us, but it is very close latitude-wise to us. When we took our tour of the world on our latitude line last week, we selected a few locations and compared their sunrise and sunset data with our own. We noticed that all locations had the same photoperiod amount. The Mystery Class #8 has only a few minutes (less than 5mn) difference with our home location. Even the sunrise and sunset times are very very close. The first week our sunrise was at 7:45 and theirs was 7:46, our sunset was 17:41 and theirs 17:43!! Over the last two weeks, it has stayed very close still. This location could still be on the other side of the world, but at the same latitude as ours! It will be interesting to figure it out.

On the photo at the top of this post, you can see the locations arranged by Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The writing shows which one is which. I should have put the southern below the northern, but I didn't think about it until I was writing this! I added an Equator line at the bottom of the photo and the mystery classes are arranged by what we think is their positions compared to it.  So that means that we think #9 (gold/brown) is in the Southern Hemisphere and closer to the Equator than #3 (yellow). With the group on the right, the Northern Hemisphere, we have added our home location. In that group, #2 (light blue) is closer to the Equator than #8 (grey). These are only our findings, so we might be wrong! The fun part of this project is to try to figure it yourself, also as the weeks go by, I won't share as much information! It is also fun to compare your findings with others, so let me know by leaving a comment if you want to do that! Have fun!

Journey North Mystery Class ~ First Two Weeks

We have now completed the first two weeks in JN Mystery Class. Nothing too interesting yet, but after this second set of sunrise and sunset information, we were able to divide the 10 mystery classes into Northern and Southern hemispheres. The locations that lost daylight from the first week are in the Southern hemisphere, the ones that are increasing their photoperiods (like us) are in the Northern hemisphere.

We also worked on the journal pages. This week's journal page with the latitude shoes was fun. We traveled around the globe along the same latitude line!

Journey North Mystery Class ~ How to get started

After reading Sarah's comment from this post, and answering her in an e-mail,  I decided to share my answer here with you. We participate in Mystery Class and love it, but we do our graphs a little differently.

I also thought that explaining how to get started with Mystery Class might be helpful. I hope my explanations will be clear enough! Mystery Class started this week, and I am not sure if it's too late to register, but you might enjoy doing it on your own as well...

The first thing you need to do is to print the two different charts. They are both on this page. The first one is the DATA SHEET. You need to have 11 of these (1 for your home location and 1 for each of the 10 mystery locations), then you will need to print the GRAPH. You will also need 11 copies of that one. You could photocopy or just print all of it, that's up to you!

Once you have all these printed, label them 1 to 10 and "home", the charts and the graphs. We like to use some tape and attach the graphs together. If you tape them together on the back and a bit of the sides of the graph, then you won't have trouble when you're coloring.

We also colour-code each location. We then keep those pencils tied with an elastic and with the charts and graphs for the whole duration of Mystery Class.

Below you can see our graph for our Home location. On Monday, we recorded the sunrise and sunset using the Weather Network. In the USA, you could use this site.

Once you have recorded the photoperiod (the amount of daylight) on your data sheet, you can record it on your graph. The numbers on the left side of the graph represent the hours. We colour the night in black and the daylight hours in whatever colour we chose for that location.



After a few weeks, this graph will be a very visual way to determine if the location is in the Northern Hemisphere (gaining daylight) or in the Southern Hemisphere (loosing daylight), along with some other clues. You can see on the photo below. This is the graph showing our home location from last year, the shift half way through shows the Daylight Savings Time:

Every monday, you record your own sunrise/sunset times and calculate the photoperiod on the chart and then graph it. 

On Fridays, you can visit the Mystery Class Updates Page or if you signed up, you will receive an e-mail from Journey North with a link giving you the sunrise and sunset information for the 10 mystery classes. You calculate their photoperiod (amount of daylight hours) and you graph it for each location. After only a couple of weeks, you will be able to tell a few facts about these classes, and Journey North will begin sending more clues as well. 

Journey North has journal pages that you can print out. These are a great starting point for talking about your discoveries. There is also a treasure of resources on this page, and on the Kids Page, there are many slideshows and more explanations.

If you want to tie in some reading with this activity, you can search for books that talk about the seasons, time zones, and longitude and latitude (here is a Book Sharing Monday about 2).

You can find great links on this post at my friend Carol's blog.

There are many more resources. Mystery Class can be built up into a wonderful learning activity!