Goals

1. Introduce students to the concept of sailing a ship.
2. Stress the importance on the use of mathematics in sailing and navigation.  Enhance the students understanding of navigation by changing navigational terms to terms that they have dealt with in the past.
3. Teach survival skills that can be used in other aspects of life.

Information on sailing and navigation:
Brown, Alan.  Invitation to Sailing.  Simon and Schuster, New York, 1962.
Farnham, Moulton H.  Sailing for Beginners.  MacMillan Publishing, New York, 1967.

Time
4-6 Hours

Procedure

1.  Introduce students to the terms: knots, direction, distance, degrees, and compass through classroom discussion.
    The definition of the words are as follows: 

Knots - (nautical) a unit of speed equal to one nautical mile or about 1.15 stature miles per hour. 
Distance - the extent or amount of space between two things, points, lines, etc. 
Degree - (geometry) the 360th part of a complete angle or turn. 
Compass - an instrument for determining directions, as by means of a freely rotating magnetized needle that indicates magnetic north. 
(Definitions taken from The Random House Dictionary of the English Language: Second Edition, Unabridged.  Edited by Stuart Berg Flexner.  Published by Random House in New York, 1987.)

3.  Use mathematic conversions to figure out the use of distance while on the sea.  Depending on the curriculum and
      the level of the mathematics skills of the students, you may want to review or teach a lesson on conversions of
      units as well as the metric system, and the United States system of measuring.

             One Nautical Mile (nm):
             1.85 kilometer
             1.15 mile

             Example conversions:

             1.  How many miles in 5 nautical miles?
             2.  How many feet in 5 nautical miles?
             3.  How many nautical miles in 7 miles
             4.  How many kilometers in 23 nautical miles?
             5.  How many meters in 23 nautical miles?

4.  Use mathematic conversions to convert knots to miles per hour to enhance the students’ understanding of the
      speed of the sail boat throughout the story.  (May want to review or teach a lesson prior to this lesson on rates,
      particularly miles per hour.) 

             One knot (kt):
             one nautical mile per hour
             1.87 km per hour
             1.15 mile per hour 

             Example usage and questions for Voyage of the Frog:  

              P. 20:  David is sailing 7 knots, how many miles per hour is this?
              P. 23:  David is sailing 8 knots, how many miles per hour is this?

5.  Work with the degrees in a circle to enhance understanding of the compass and direction.

6.  Practice using a compass by doing the following activity:

      While in a large group, the teacher will call out a degree to face and the students can use the compass to face
      that direction. 

7.  Demonstrate to the students how to use a map to plot the different routes that they will take during the following
      outdoor activity.

       Outdoor activity (can be done in an indoor commons area or gym) 

       A.  Before you start the activity, set up different ‘islands’ in the chosen area.  These ‘islands’ can be an ‘X’ on
              the ground, can be placed on trees, or they can be certain points that students will recognize as an ‘island’.
             Place some of them close so they will have to follow the compass precisely, place an island directly behind
              another so that the students will have to pay attention to the distance that they must travel in order to choose
              the right ‘island’.  Posted on the ‘islands’ will be a science orientated survival tip such as:  Do not drink salt
              water when sailing in the ocean.  Create a Map of the Area showing all of the ‘islands’ so the students can
               visually see each route that they took. 

       B.  Have the students count out the number of steps it takes them to walk 10 yards.  To be accurate, have them
             do it twice.  This will ensure that during the activity, students will walk precisely to the ‘island’.  Each
              student has a different length stride.  With this part of the lesson, the route sheets can be used for any student
              (the distance should be in yards).  Each student will know their own number of steps in 10 yards so each
              students will be traveling the same distance.  For example, when given the information to travel 30 yards,
              some may be traveling 13 steps per 10 yards and others will travel 12 steps per 10 yards, but in the end they
              will all move 30 yards regardless of the steps that they take.

       C.  Give different routes to students.  Start with the easier sheets and endwith the harder ones. (See sample
             route sheets for easy routes, hard routes will have more steps.) See Sample Route Sheet #1.
              See Sample Route Sheet #2.

       D.  Students will use the orienteering compass, direction on route sheet, and the distance to the ‘island’ to get to
              each ‘island’.  At each ‘island,’ students will collect a survival tip.  For example, if the student is instructed
              on his/her sheet to turn 30 degrees east and to walk 30 yards, they will turn the amount of degrees, using
              the compass and will walk 30 yards.  They will then find the survival tip and answer the questions on the sheet.

       E.  After each student is done, he/she can bring the route sheet to a teacher and have it corrected.  If the route is
              the correct route which is determined by the survival tips that they gathered from each ‘island,’ they can begin
              a more complicated route.  If they do not have the correct survival tips, he/she must retrace their route to find
              the correct ones. 

       F.  Before the student moves on to a new route, he/she must map out the route that they took on a map of the area
             which is already made for them. 

8.  Do the journal activity - See Reading and Journal lesson plan for possible journal questions for this activity.
  
Assessment

1. Written work from the mathematics activity can be collected from the students.  The students can be given problems to work on or notes from the discussion can be collected.  (Criteria for Success:  Demonstrates an understanding of materials.  X number of problems correct or notes are written correctly.) 
2. Participation in classroom activity.  (Criteria for Success: Participation can be viewed by the instructor.) 
3. Each student will complete a route successfully and map it out before receiving a new route. (Criteria for Success:  Each route taken will have thought out ideas for each survival tip and a detailed Map of the Area that includes a line from each ‘island’ to ‘island,’ showing the distance in steps and the compass direction that they used for each step.)

        1.  Math - Applied mathematics, speed, rate, problem solving skills
        2.  Social Studies - Survival skills
        3.  Science - Survival tips that are science orientated, scientific principles that allow the compass to work correctly.

Extensions

        1. Use the Internet to find examples of the use of the words in procedure #1.
        2. Students can make their own route in teams or individually.
        3. Speaker on use of compass:  Forest Ranger, Ship Captain.

Go Back To S.O.S. Survival on the Sea Outline

Submitted By St. Norbert College Ocean Voyagers Program