A Map for the Seed House
Frostfern is a small northern town where gardeners save seeds from plants that can grow during short summers. The Frostfern Seed House stores the seeds in a cool building and shares them with nearby communities. A map crew is making a globe guide so visitors can find the seed house and other places.
The crew uses latitude and longitude. Latitude measures how far north or south a place is from the equator. Lines of latitude circle Earth from east to west. Longitude measures how far east or west a place is from the prime meridian. Lines of longitude run from the North Pole to the South Pole. A coordinate pair gives latitude first and longitude second.
On the crew's guide, the Frostfern Seed House is at 64° N, 18° W. Marten Gate, where the winter road enters town, is at 65° N, 22° W. Bluebell Creek is at 63° N, 20° W. Whitecap Meadow is at 66° N, 17° W. Pineglass Dock is at 64° N, 15° W. Cloudberry Hill is at 62° N, 23° W.
To locate a place on a globe, a reader first finds the correct latitude line and then follows the correct longitude line. The place is where those two lines meet. For example, Frostfern and Pineglass Dock share a latitude, so they are the same distance north of the equator. Their different longitudes show that they are not in the same east-west position.