Keystone Weekly
volume 4, issue 24        April 7, 2003

This week's Key Points: *Web Pick of the Week,* *New Moons of Jupiter, * *Food, Land, and People Agricultural Workshops*
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This week's Web Pick is just a quick one, to provoke thought. Perhaps you've seen the Peters projection map, and have been a bit startled by its appearance. It's quite different from the Mercator projection--the map many still use today, and was created from seafaring models in 1569. The Peters projection seeks to represent the landforms according to their relative sizes in proper proportion to each other.

Take a look, and consider posing the question of "Which is bigger, Greenland or China?" and see what kind of answers you get. With the traditional Mercator map, Greenland and China seem to be the same size. In reality, China is almost four times larger. Sharing this map with your students promises to raise some interesting questions for discussion about the nature and representation of our planet.

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Last May (http://www.keystone.fi.edu/weekly/kweekly32v3.shtml#awe), we shared the news that Jupiter's number of known moons had increased substantially, totaling 39 moons at that time. But astronomy is changing all of the time, as shown by this exciting new information. Early in April, scientists announced that there are six new moons circling the massive planet, bringing the new total to 58. (Other new moons had been discovered as well since last May.) These newest moons are small, maybe only a mile or so wide, and orbit Jupiter at a distance of tens of millions of miles.

Take a look at the site above for pictures and detailed information from the researchers themselves. And be sure to note down this new information in pencil!

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The Capital Area Institute for Math and Science is conducting Food, Land, and People Agricultural Workshops at the Milton Hershey School Environment and Ecology Building on April 9 and April 10. April 9 will focus on the K-3 grade levels and April 10 will focus on grades 4-6. The day will include experiences to help individuals understand and apply the agriculture standards in their classrooms. The Food, Land, and People resource book will be distributed. The sessions will run from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and Act 48 hours will be earned for the session.

For more information, contact Kathy Blouch at 717-526-6146 or kblouch@psu.edu.

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This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 9819641.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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