Sunday 12 July 2015

How fast am I travelling (due to Earth's spin and Earth's orbit)?

'A screaming roller coaster; how fast am I travelling (due to Earth's spin and Earth's orbit)?'


After the class roller-coaster experience, ask your pupils ‘Why were we acting like this?’ The answer is that you are all travelling very fast towards the East - due to the spin of the Earth. If you are on the Equator you are travelling at 1,674.4 km/h. To calculate how fast you’re travelling at your latitude, multiply
1,674.4 km/h by the cosine of your latitude – for example, the speed in London is: 1,674.4 x cos 51.5 = 1,042 km/h (647 miles per hour!)
Work out how fast you are travelling at your latitude.
Lots more teaching ideas can be found on our website.

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