A privacy-first location toolkit for educators
Every tool on this site runs in the browser with no accounts, no sign-ups and no third-party tracking scripts — which makes it usable on school networks and simple to vet. Teachers use it for coordinates, map reading, compasses, grid references and sun geometry; this page maps the tools to those lessons and links the printable materials.
Why classrooms use this site
Three properties matter in a school setting, and they are structural here rather than promises: no accounts (nothing to provision, no student sign-ups, nothing to remember), no location storage (a position is read only after the browser's own permission prompt and is processed on the device — the privacy policy is short because there is little to disclose), and no third-party trackers or social scripts, so the pages load on filtered school networks where ad-heavy tools break. Everything is free, works in any modern browser on any device, and the interface is available in 36 languages — useful in multilingual classrooms and for EAL students working in their first language.
Tools that map straight onto the curriculum
Coordinates and place: the coordinates reader shows one position in 8 formats side by side (decimal, DMS, UTM, MGRS and more), the converter re-expresses any pair, and latitude vs longitude settles the which-is-which question with a mnemonic. Map skills: how to read a grid reference teaches six-figure references the way exam boards ask for them, backed by the OS grid tool for live practice. Direction: the online compass turns any phone into a demonstration compass, and true north vs magnetic north explains declination with current pole-drift figures. Earth-sun geometry: sunrise and sunset times and the golden hour pages make seasons and latitude tangible — compare your school with a city near the equator. Distance and scale: the distance calculator gives great-circle distances and bearings between any two points, and the antipode finder is a reliable five-minute hook for a globe lesson.
How a typical lesson runs
Nothing needs installing. Students open a page, the tool runs, and location is used only if — and while — they allow the browser prompt; declining it never breaks a lesson, because every tool accepts typed places or map clicks instead. For fieldwork, the site installs as an app and the compass, converter and saved places then work with no connectivity at all. A practical pattern teachers report: pair students, have one read a six-figure grid reference from a paper map and the other verify it with the grid tool, then swap — the disagreement between the two is where the learning is. How GPS accuracy works and why is my location wrong give older students an honest account of error, multipath and the accuracy circle — good material for a data-literacy discussion about what a measurement actually claims.
Printable and embeddable materials
The grid reference guide includes a free printable card with cut-out romer scales for 1:25,000 and 1:50,000 maps, the six-figure drill and a read-out script — print at 100%, laminate, hand out (a 100 mm check bar confirms the printer didn't rescale it). School and library websites can embed the location widget or the map embed free of charge, and the developer API gives computing classes a clean, key-based geocoding endpoint for projects. The long-form guides — GPS accuracy, coordinate systems, charts and datums, even cosmic-ray navigation for a physics tangent — are written to be read, not skimmed, and each carries its sources.
For IT reviewers and vetting committees
What a review needs to know, in one paragraph: the site currently runs no advertising, sets no marketing cookies, and its pages load no outside scripts — map tiles from OpenStreetMap are the one external resource the map views fetch — and any change to that would be disclosed in the privacy policy first. Geolocation is gated behind the browser's own per-site permission prompt — there is no API path around it — and coordinates are processed in the page, with server lookups (such as turning a position into an address) proxied without being logged against a user. There are no student accounts and no server-side profiles, so there is typically no personal data to assess. The privacy policy and terms state this formally, and the browser privacy check lets you verify the behaviour from a school machine yourself. Questions from a district or trust are welcome via the contact page.