Cover lesson · Geography · Year 9 · Intermediate
DCF: Data and computational thinking → Data and information literacy
Name: Class: Date:
Print: this sheet, one per pupil. It contains the dataset and the blank base map, so no computers and no atlas are needed. Print in landscape if your printer allows it, so the map fills the page. A ruler and a pencil each; coloured pencils are a bonus, not a requirement.
Run: 4 min read the dataset and decide the symbol rule · 6 min plot the first three events together as a class · 20 min plot the remaining thirteen · 6 min complete the key · 10 min answer the four pattern questions · 4 min the deep-earthquake question.
Collect: this sheet. Plotting accuracy is easy to mark: on the example map every circle sits on or very close to a dashed plate boundary, so any circle out on its own in an ocean has been plotted wrongly.
Table 1 is a real extract from the United States Geological Survey earthquake catalogue: every earthquake of magnitude 6.5 or above recorded anywhere in the world during 2024, sixteen of them. Latitude and longitude are only coordinates, so you can plot each one on the grid below. Once they are all on, the pattern does the explaining for you — which is the whole point of putting data on a map instead of leaving it in a table.
| Date | Latitude | Longitude | Depth (km) | Magnitude | Nearest place |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-01-01 | 37.487 | 137.271 | 10.0 | 7.5 | Noto Peninsula, Japan |
| 2024-01-22 | 41.255 | 78.654 | 13.0 | 7.0 | Aykol, China |
| 2024-03-03 | -58.888 | 159.144 | 23.2 | 6.8 | Macquarie Island region |
| 2024-03-23 | -4.129 | 143.134 | 41.5 | 6.9 | Ambunti, Papua New Guinea |
| 2024-04-02 | 23.836 | 121.598 | 40.0 | 7.4 | Hualien City, Taiwan |
| 2024-06-28 | -15.828 | -74.454 | 24.0 | 7.2 | Atiquipa, Peru |
| 2024-07-10 | -53.309 | 25.348 | 4.0 | 6.6 | South of Africa |
| 2024-07-11 | 6.084 | 123.15 | 639.5 | 7.1 | Sangay, Philippines |
| 2024-07-19 | -23.079 | -67.84 | 127.3 | 7.4 | San Pedro de Atacama, Chile |
| 2024-08-08 | 31.76 | 131.502 | 24.0 | 7.1 | Hyuganada Sea, Japan |
| 2024-08-17 | 52.931 | 160.133 | 29.0 | 7.0 | Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia |
| 2024-08-25 | -19.812 | -175.071 | 96.0 | 6.9 | Pangai, Tonga |
| 2024-09-15 | 51.609 | -130.612 | 3.8 | 6.5 | Port McNeill, Canada |
| 2024-11-10 | 19.797 | -77.051 | 14.0 | 6.8 | Bartolome Maso, Cuba |
| 2024-12-05 | 40.374 | -125.022 | 10.0 | 7.0 | Offshore Cape Mendocino, California |
| 2024-12-17 | -17.691 | 168.084 | 54.4 | 7.3 | Port-Vila, Vanuatu |
Source: United States Geological Survey earthquake catalogue. Positive latitude is north of the Equator and negative is south; positive longitude is east of the Greenwich meridian and negative is west.
| Radius for a magnitude 6.5 event | |
|---|---|
| Radius for a magnitude 7.5 event | |
| My rule, in one sentence | |
| Why is a circle that grows better here than one dot per event? |
| Question | My answer from the map |
|---|---|
| How many of the sixteen events sit around the rim of the Pacific Ocean? | |
| Name the ones that are not on the Pacific rim and say roughly where each is. | |
| Are there large areas with no earthquakes at all? Name two. | |
| Work out the mean, median, modal and range of the sixteen magnitudes. |
Fifteen of the sixteen earthquakes happened in the top 130 km of the Earth. One was 639.5 km deep. Find it on your map, then write two sentences: where is it, and what does a very deep earthquake suggest is happening beneath that point?