Donald Rucker, Age 17, Of Wichita, Kan., For his question:

How many miles are in a degree of latitude or longitude?

These man made circles divide the surface of the globe into rectangles of various sizes. The lines of latitude are parallel circles between the equator and the two poles. There are 90 degrees of latitude both north and south of the equator. There are 180 circles of longitude that circle the globe through the poles, where each circle is divided in half. A degree of longitude is the distance between two of these half circles.

At the equator, the circumference of the globe is 24,902 miles, and north and south from this point it tapers off to nothing at the poles. The average distance between the degrees of latitude that girdle the globe from east to west is about 70 miles. At the equator where they are farthest apart, the degrees of longitude also are about 70 miles apart. However, north and south of the equator they taper closer together and finally all meet together at the two poles.