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Getting coordinated

Learn how longitude and latitude shape how the land lies, and coordinate your search to find loads of loot!
Plan a session with this activity

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You’ll need

  • Access to the internet
  • Scrap paper
  • Pens or pencils
  • Something to mark lines (for example, chalk, masking tape, or rope)
  • Screen or projector
  • Prizes

Before you begin

  • This activity requires at least three leaders and helpers, and more will be needed for larger groups. Make sure you have enough support to keep the correct ratio of adults to young people and to make the activity work. Remember to pick up some goodies to award as prizes!
  • Bring up an image of a latitude-longitude globe on a tablet or computer. You could also print one and project it onto a screen. Here’s some you could use: a detailed image and a blank one for more of a challenge.
  • Draw out some grids of squares or rectangles. Make latitude and longitude cards by writing out some coordinates in each square or rectangle, using the latitude-longitude globe image to choose ones that cover various countries. Make as many or as little as are needed for your group to enjoy. (Bear in mind that points near borders could be shared by more than one country).
  • Write out each coordinate on a separate slip of paper, and place these in a bag. Shuffle them around.
  • Write the name of each country that you’ve got coordinates for on a separate envelope. Fill each envelope with prizes and seal them. Place all of the envelopes in a second bag and shuffle these around.
  • Mark out two grids on your meeting place floor. Each square needs to be large enough for a person to stand in. A five-by-five-size grid works well. Number both grids with chalk or a sticky note, with each row on the y-axis ascending in 10 s from the bottom left and each column on the x-axis ascending in 50 s from the bottom left. The numbers running up are ‘northings’ and those running across are ‘eastings’.

Run the activity

  1. Explain to everyone the differences between ordnance survey coordinates and longitude and latitude coordinates.
  • The ordnance survey coordinate system is really just a series of boxes, with smaller boxes inside them.
  • Imagine the floor of the meeting place is a map of the UK. An ordnance survey map is divided into a series of 500 km x 500 km squares, and each square is given a letter. The UK is covered by squares ‘H’, ‘N’, ‘O’, ‘S’, and ‘T’. These 500 km squares are then divided into 25 smaller squares, each of these smaller squares measures 100 km x 100 km and carry two letters, the first of which tells us which of the 500 km squares the smaller square sits in (so ‘SS’ contains Swansea in South Wales, for example).
  • Within each of these 100 km squares, another 100 smaller squares are numbered in kilometres as eastings (that’s numbers counting up from left to right, west to east) and northings (that’s numbers increasing from the bottom of the map up to the top, south to north). In SS, the 1 km square with the spit of land known as Mumbles Head would be ‘63, 87’.
  • If we wanted to be even more precise, we could give a six-figure grid reference, which pinpoints a 100 m square. For example, 635, 872 gives us the lighthouse at Mumbles Head. The whole reference could be given as SS635872.
  • Instead of a flat grid like on the OS map, the longitude and latitude system takes the world as a globe and slices it into segments like a fruit.
  • The latitudinal lines run east to west around the globe in rings. The ring around the widest point on earth is known as the ‘equator’, which acts as the 0 line. The other rings are at 30-degree intervals, increasing towards the North Pole (30, 60, 90) and decreasing towards the South Pole (-30, -60, -90).
  • The longitudinal lines start at the North Pole and end at the South Pole. The 0-degree mark, which passes through the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, is known as the ‘prime meridian’. From there, the longitudinal lines are at 30-degree intervals to the west and east, up to 180 degrees.
  • More precise coordinates can be given for any location in minutes and seconds. For example, Mumbles Head lighthouse near Swansea would be 51° 34’ 0.642” N, 3° 58’ 15.5604” W. Read aloud, this sounds like ‘Latitude: 51° 34 minutes 0.642” seconds North and Longitude: 3° 58 minutes 15.5604 seconds West.
  • The use of minutes and seconds can be confusing, because it doesn’t actually have anything to do with time. The reason that minutes and seconds was originally chosen is that they are both divisible by 60 and so can act as smaller units for degrees.
  • In some applications, coordinates are then converted into a decimal figure. Have a look at the LatLong website for a handy converter and map-plotting tool.

Country

Capital

Coordinates

China

Beijing

39°54′25″N

116°23′51″E

India

Delhi

28°36′36″N

77°13′48″E

Japan

Tokyo

35°41′23″N

139°41′32″E

Russia

Moscow

55°45′21″N

37°37′2″E

DR Congo

Kinshasa

4°19′30″S

15°19′20″E

Indonesia

Jakarta

6°12′S

106°49′E

South Korea

Seoul

37°34′N

126°58′E

Egypt

Cairo

30°2′N

31°14′E

Mexico

Mexico City

19°26′N

99°8′W

United Kingdom

London

51°30′26″N

0°7′39″W

Bangladesh

Dhaka

23°45′50″N

90°23′20″E

Peru

Lima

12°03′S

77°02′W

Iran

Tehran

35°41′21″N

51°23′20″E

Thailand

Bangkok

13°45′09″N

100°29′39″E

Vietnam

Hanoi

21°01′42″N     105°51′15″E

Saudi Arabia

Riyadh

24°38′N

46°43′E

Hong Kong

Hong Kong

22°22'12.20"N 114°09'12.94" E

Colombia

Bogotá

4°42′40″N

74°4′20″W

Iraq

Baghdad

33°20′N

44°23′E

Chile

Santiago

33°27′S

70°40′W

 

  1. Place the bag of latitude and longitude coordinates on one side of the activity area. This should be on the other side of the room to your device, computer or projection showing the image of the latitude-longitude globe. A helper or leader should stand with the device, computer or projector, holding the bag of envelopes with countries on them.
  2. Split into two teams. Each team should line up behind one of the grids on the floor. Each team should be allocated a leader or helper.

Larger groups may need to split into four or six teams. Each group will need a grid on the floor to take part, as well as duplicate country envelopes and latitude and longitude coordinate cards. It may be easier to do this outside if there’s more space, with a couple of extra helpers to keep an eye on everyone.

  1. For this game, each team’s leader or helper should call out a grid reference. The person at the front of each team line should step into the square on their grid where they think that grid reference would be on a map grid. If this is chosen correctly, the second person in line may pick a latitude and longitude coordinate from that bag and the first person should go to the back of their line. If this is chosen incorrectly, the first person should go to the back of their line and the second person should try to guess the grid reference. Continue in this way until a grid reference is correctly guessed.
  2. When a player collects a latitude and longitude coordinate card, they should try to guess which country lies at those coordinates. To do this, they may use the image of the latitude-longitude globe. If they guess the right country, they are awarded the envelope with that country’s name on to share with their team. If they guess the wrong country, that person should go to the back of their team line and the person at the front of that line must guess a grid reference again.
  3. Continue in this way until all of the envelopes have been collected and prizes shared out.

Reflection

This activity explored two ways of describing a location on a map. The key difference between these two systems is that a six-figure grid reference used in an OS map actually refers to a 100m square, whereas a coordinate using latitude and longitude refers to a more precise point. This is why activities like geocaching will use coordinates, while activities that require less precise navigation and make use of landmarks and terrain more will use grid references. Ask everyone to list some ways they might use grid references and latitude and longitude coordinates. People might suggest when hiking, taking part in or creating scavenger hunts or in future careers as pilots or captains. They’re both pretty handy if you ever get stranded somewhere too!

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

Teams could work in pairs or threes to solve the latitude and longitude countries, if these prove tricky.

Make it accessible

All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.

Scouts Geocaching Activity Badge

Try working out the coordinates and grid references for some of your favourite places, or using your lucky numbers and seeing where the coordinates lead you!

Take a look at some other coordinate systems, such as those used by what3words.

This is a great chance for any young people more confident with the science of coordinates or latitude and longitude to share what they know.