History of the Current

Procedure
Problem Statement
Mail sent from England to the American colonies was taking a long time to arrive—two months on average. And yet merchant ships, which were heavier and took a longer route than the mail packet ships, made the same trip from England in just a month and a half on average. It didn’t seem to matter whether the packet ships sailing from England experienced good weather or bad, whether the wind was in their sails or not—something still held them back. What was causing the delays?


1.  Create working groups of 6 students.  Break each group of six into pairs.  Obtain one tracking chart per group of six students.

Pair 1
2.  Obtain the Pair 1 Student Worksheet with the profile of Benjamin Franklin and answer the Pair 1 questions.

Character Profiles:  Benjamin Franklin - Postmaster General
In 1768, Benjamin Franklin was the postmaster general for the American colonies.  He was summoned to travel to London were he was questioned by British authorities.  They wanted to know why letters took much longer to get to New York than to New England ports when the two locations were "scarcely a day's sail apart" and why westward mail from Europe to America took weeks longer than the east-bound ships from America.

Franklin did not have an answer, but started an investigation.  One piece of evidence came from his journal.  Franklin recalled that on his return trip from London, in 1726, after several weeks at sea, the color of the water began to change. There were "hot damp winds," he noted in his journal, along with "an abundance of grass" and other seaweed visible in the water. To Franklin, the warmer air and warmer water suggested that the ship must be very near the coast, but the ship’s captain scoffed at that idea.  And, indeed, after six days, the water regained its former darker color, and the hot wind and abundant seaweed disappeared. The ship was nowhere near the coast.

Franklin's Journal Entries



Pair 2
3.  Obtain the Pair 2 Student Worksheet with the profile of Timothy Folger  and answer the Pair 2 questions.

Character Profiles:  Timothy Folger - Nantucket Whaler
In 1769, Benjamin Franklin asked for the assistance of his cousin, Timothy Folger, a Whaler from Nantucket, Massachusetts.  Timothy Folger explained that the benefits of the Gulf Stream were discovered early by sea captains, but their maps of the Gulf Stream were closely guarded secrets handled with the utmost care.  Why would American whalers be interested in the Gulf Stream?

Whale information



Pair 3
4.  Obtain the Pair 3 Student Worksheet with the profile of Samuel Worthington and answer the Pair 3 questions.

Character Profiles:  Samuel Worthington - British Businessperson
Samuel Worthington was a businessperson who was running low on patience.  For several years, his family had operated a successful cotton fabric manufacturing business.  As trade with the British colonies in North America began to increase, Samuel saw a large increase in orders for cotton fabric.  In 1750, Samuel began to import cotton from the colonies to supply his business.  At first, this was a wonderful solution; Samuel imported the raw cotton via New York and then shipped the finished products back over to New York to be sold and distributed throughout the colonies, and also to the West Indies.  But over time he began to notice a pattern.  The packet ships delivering the raw cotton from America arrived much faster than the British ships bringing his finished cotton fabric over to New York, even though they followed the same route.  But what made him really angry was that the ships bound for the West Indies, which stopped in Spain before crossing the Atlantic, also arrived in the West Indies often faster than the ships traveling to New York.  Samuel complained to the British authorities for years, but nothing changed.  He was growing quite impatient and wanted answers.  What was going on? 

Colonial Trade Routes


5. After each pair of students has collected their respective information and answered their questions, regroup, compare information.  As a group of 6, answer the following Assessment questions on the worksheets.


Assessment
1.  What tools were available to identify the current in Benjamin Franklin's time?
2.  What type of water can be found in the Gulf Stream, warm or cold? 
3.  Where do you think the water in the Gulf Stream originates? 
4.  How do you think you could locate the approximate position of the Gulf Stream today?   What tools could you use?
5.  Which direction do you think the water in the Gulf Stream is flowing?  Indicate the direction of water flow on the chart. 
6.  Look at these archived satellite images of the Gulf Stream during the same time of year as Franklin's voyage in the Berkshire.   On the tracking chart, sketch in the approximate northern boundary (edge of the orange-red area) of the Gulf Stream. 
 Sept 30, 2000  or Sept 30, 2000
7.  Mark the approximate location of the Berkshire on the tracking chart from Franklin’s Sept. 30^th journal entry.  Where is the ship in relation to the Gulf Stream?
8.  Look at the Franklin - Folger Chart  do you think it is accurate compared to what we know today?  Explain.
9.  Why would it be important to identify the Gulf Stream?
10.  Why would it be important to identify other currents?