Year 8: Bearings

Dr J Frost (jfrost@tiffin.kingston.sch.uk)
www.drfrostmaths.com

Last modified: 8th October 2015

Starter Puzzle

Q
Here some aerial pictures of various airport runways Dr Frost has
been on. Can you work out what the numbers mean?

Beijing Capital
Heathrow - London JFK – New York International Airport

Portland Rhodes
International Airport Hilo Airport - Hawaii EuroAirport – Basel- Airport -
- Oregon Mulhouse-Freiberg Greece
If we add a 0 on the end, we get the angle clockwise from North the runway faces!
Bearings
! A bearing is an angle measure clockwise from North. We use 3 digits.

Historical reason for 3 digits?

Bearings used to be
transmitted digit by digit from
E B
Q

Q
ship to ship. Were some
?
bearings two digits, it would be
ambiguous whether two digits
was intended or a digit was lost
in transmission.

A C The bearing of:

Q

Q
B from A ?
000
A from B ?
180
C from A ?
090
D ?
Q

D from A 225
A from D ?
045
A from E ?
135
E from A ?
315
Measuring Bearings

Measure the bearing of 𝐵 from 𝐴.

Click to Bromeasure >

N
056
Measure the bearing of 𝐴 from 𝐵.
𝐵
Our protractor only goes up to 180° so start
measuring from South.

Click to Bromeasure >

N
180 + 56 = 236
What do you notice about the
two bearings?
𝐴
! If we measure the bearing
? we add or
from the other object,
subtract 180°.
Test Your Understanding
Question on provided sheet.

𝐴 𝑁

𝑁
𝐶

B from A ?
116
𝑁 A from B ?
296

𝐷
C from B ?
073
D from C ?
228
A from D ?
334
D from A ?
154
You have a map of Kingston-upon-Thames…
 What does this scale mean?
Scale 1:300
It means that 1cm on the map
? in real life.
represents 300cm

Tiffin
John Lewis

What distance is this in real life?

75 × 300 = 22500𝑐𝑚
= 225𝑚 ?
Test Your Understanding

1 If a map scale is 1:100 000, and two locations are 6.2 cm apart on the
map, what distance in km does this represent?
𝟔. 𝟐 × 𝟏𝟎 𝟎𝟎𝟎𝟎 = 𝟔𝟐𝟎 𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝒄𝒎
= 𝟔𝟐𝟎𝟎?𝒎 = 𝟔. 𝟐 𝒌𝒎

2 If a map scale is 1: 5000, and two locations are 3.2km apart, how far
are they away on the map in cm?
𝟑. 𝟐 𝒌𝒎 = 𝟑𝟐𝟎𝟎 𝒎 = 𝟑𝟐𝟎 𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝒄𝒎
𝟑𝟐𝟎 𝟎𝟎𝟎 ÷ 𝟓 𝟎𝟎𝟎 = ? 𝟔𝟒 𝒄𝒎

3 Bobville and Daveton are 4cm apart on a map, but 1km apart in real
life. Determine the scale of the map.
𝟒𝒄𝒎 ∶ 𝟏𝒌𝒎 = 𝟒𝒄𝒎 ∶ 𝟏𝟎𝟎𝟎𝒎 = 𝟒𝒄𝒎 ∶ 𝟏𝟎𝟎 𝟎𝟎𝟎𝒄𝒎
= 𝟏 ∶ 𝟐𝟓 𝟎𝟎𝟎 ?
Worksheet
Have go at the provided printouts.