New ocean sparks questions about changing maps, textbooks

[n2doc]

BY RANDI WEINER
THE JOURNAL NEWS • SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Shortly after school started this year, Thiells Elementary School teacher Amy Becker was working with her fourth-grade students on their map skills when one child asked why she wasn't mentioning the fifth ocean.

Fifth ocean? All the maps, the globe and the textbooks mention four oceans: the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic.

"So we researched it," Becker said. "There really is a fifth ocean. They pulled it up on the Internet. We're not actively teaching it in our curriculum, so it was really cool for the children to learn about this."

In the spring of 2000, the International Hydrographic Organization, based in Monaco, designated all the water below 60 degrees south latitude the Southern Ocean. The ocean surrounds Antarctica wholly, and used to be shown as the place where the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans met at the bottom of the world.

Since then, cartographers and others, including the National Geographic Society and the U.S. Geological Survey, have debated whether the Southern Ocean should, in fact, become part of the lexicon.
more:
http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080922/NEWS03/809220340/1019/NEWS03

[Adsos Letter]

1. I say "Yes!!!"...

give those Geography undergrads one more thing to remember at test-time... :D