CONTENTS
A Surveyor for the King
Primary
Source
Teaching
Strategy
Colonial Williamsburg Teaching Resources
Teaching News
Quote of the Month
The Next
Electronic Field Trip is
Degrees of Latitude
December 2, 2004
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2004–2005 Fall & Winter
Teaching Resources Catalog
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Trip Scholarships
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A Surveyor for the King
Colonel Peter Jefferson, a gentleman, landowner, county official, and land surveyor for His Majesty King George II stood more than six feet tall, and his son, Thomas, later recalled that he had the strength of three men—an advantage for a man of his position.
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More
Primary Source:
Surveyor's Chain
The Gunter's Chain was the standard tool for measuring distances
in America for nearly three hundred years. Developed in the late seventeenth century, it left a
permanent mark on the surveying profession.
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More
Teaching
Strategy: Creating a Class Map
Accuracy and objectivity were crucial to
the Corps of Discovery as they set out to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Territory. Using
Thomas Jefferson's instructions to Lewis and Clark, students will work together to create an accurate
map of an area of their school.
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Colonial
Williamsburg Teaching Resources for Your
Classroom
Colonial Williamsburg offers a variety of quality instructional materials to help you teach students about life in early America, as well as surveying and cartography, including:
Degrees of Latitude: Mapping Colonial America (book)
Map of Virginia and Maryland (primary source)
Nature, Art, and Science (Becoming Americans video)
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Teaching
News
A California teacher, banned from using some American history
documents in the classroom because they contain references to God, is suing his school district for infringement
of his first amendment rights.
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Quote
of the Month
"If the map shows a different structure from the territory represented—for instance, shows the cities
in a wrong order . . . then the map is worse than useless, as it misinforms and leads astray."
--Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity, 1933
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