Welcome, Geography
Your bellwork lives here.
On class days a new bellwork appears below: a short reading, a bet, and three questions. Read it, make your guess before the reveal, and write real answers. You are graded on honest effort and completeness, not on guessing right — there are no wrong guesses before the reveal.
How to turn it in
Hit the gold Turn it in button at the bottom of the bellwork. On the form, choose Geography as your class, then pick your assigned number — the one your teacher gave you. No names, no sign-in. One submission per day.
GEO6 - Geography - September 11
The day the sky closed — and the town that caught the planes
Last bet, settled
You bet on the year Yellowstone became the world’s first national park. Answer: 1872 — 18 years before Wyoming was even a state. And Old Faithful still erupts about every 90 minutes.
This morning marks twenty-five years since September 11, 2001. Today’s story is the geography of that day — and the kindness hiding in it.
March 2001, six months before — Wikimedia Commons.
The morning itself, seen from Brooklyn — Wikimedia Commons.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked four airliners and used them as weapons against New York and Washington. Within minutes, America did something it had never done: it closed its entire sky. About 4,500 planes were ordered to land at the nearest runway, wherever they were. But here is the geography problem: hundreds of flights from Europe were already out over the Atlantic Ocean — too far to turn back, suddenly forbidden to enter the United States. Look at the map below and you can see where they had to go. The shortest path between Europe and America is not a straight line across the ocean — because the Earth is round, the shortest route arcs way up north, passing right over the island of Newfoundland, Canada. And there, under the flight paths, sat a small town called Gander — population about 10,000 — with one giant runway left over from the days when planes had to stop there to refuel. Thirty-eight jumbo jets dropped out of the sky onto that little town in a single afternoon. For five days, the people of Gander cooked for the stranded strangers, put them up in schools and churches and their own homes, and asked for nothing. When the sky reopened, the passengers went home — and many of them never stopped telling the story.
Your map for Question 2: the blue line is “straight” on a flat map — but the red arc is actually SHORTER, because the Earth is round. Draw the same arc from London to New York and it swings north — right over Newfoundland. — Wikimedia Commons.
Make your bet
Gander had about 10,000 people. Bet: how many stranded passengers landed on the town that day?
Your turn
1. Check the reading. Why did the flights from Europe have to land in Newfoundland instead of turning around or flying on?
2. Think like a globe. Why is the shortest path from Europe to America a curve up north instead of a straight line across the map?
3. Go deeper. If thousands of stranded strangers landed on our town tomorrow, what would we do? Explain.