SAMPLE: The Cod Fishery

Title: Hey, Where Did Everyone Go?

Background: The cod fishery can hardly be overestimated in its importance in the development of historical North Eastern North America and especially that of the Maritime Provinces. Its recent collapse has been a disaster for large segments of the Newfoundland population who make their living from the sea.

Questions:

1. Go to: http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/specialfeatures/atlanticcod/codhome.asp

How plentiful were cod off Newfoundland when Cabot arrived there?

2. Now, scroll down and click on Mapping. Please print the middle map. Use it and an atlas to estimate the distances of the three sea routes associated with the multinational cod trade.

3. If a ship can sail at 3.2 knots/hr northerly, 2.8 knots/hr westerly, and 4.6 knots/hr easterly, find the time in days it would take to travel each of these routes? (1 knot/hr = 1.15 miles/hr; 1 mile = 1.61 km)

4. a) Go back to the previous page, scroll down and select Characteristics to find a cod's average mass.

b) Change this to the average weight.

5. a) Scroll down farther. Find the length of their migration route in km.

b) A cod migrating at 0.4 m/s would take how long to travel the migration route?

6. a) If a cod travels west, it is showing what sign of velocity?

b) If the cod travels east and slows down, what sign of velocity is it showing?

7. Find the average velocity of a cod that travels 200 m in 2.3 min, stops for 4.5 min. and then travels 358 m in 6.2 min.

8. If a cod swims at 0.035 m/s, how far will it travel in 0.5 hr?

9. How long will it take a cod to swim 0.27 km at 0.013 m/s?

10. If a cod swims at 0.1 m/s, how far will it travel in 0.3 days?

11. Go to: http://www.civilization.ca/hist/canp1/ca03beng.html Scroll down to the second picture and click on "1. Cod hooks, lines and sinkers." Please print the image. Once hooked, a cod just hangs on the line. Find its upward speed if a fisherman can haul in 70 m of line in 95 s.