Geography is a giant matter. It actually spans the globe. That’s why the Nationwide Council for Geographic Training and the Affiliation of American Geographers broke geography down into 5 distinct themes:
- Location
- Place
- Human-Surroundings Interactions
- Motion
- Area
Right here’s a brief video about every of the 5 themes of geography and easy methods to method them within the classroom.
Geography Theme 1: Location
Location is the research of the place locations are situated, each absolute and relative.
Absolute location is a definitive reference for a spot. So, it’s a spot’s latitude and longitude, an handle, or some other technique to inform precisely the place a spot is. If you happen to describe your home as being at 123 Foremost Avenue, you’re describing an absolute location.
Relative location explains the place a spot is in relation to different landmarks and the setting. Describing your college as 23 miles from the closest ocean is utilizing relative location.
Location is vital to understanding the geography of a area because it helps us talk about totally different locations. And defining location helps us perceive how issues like local weather, pure sources, and topography influence people.
How To Train Location
Instructing location means instructing children to explain locations, in addition to studying and creating maps.
Construct an amusement park
Train the fundamentals of mapmaking and concepts of location by having college students design their very own amusement park. Have them take into consideration absolutely the and relative places as they map out their rides. The large curler coaster is at a particular latitude and longitude. It’s additionally 50 toes from the snow cone stand.
Get it: Construct Your Amusement Park lesson
Create a narrative map
Learn books from around the globe and, as you do, determine on the map the place every story takes place. As you learn, discuss how the place formed the story. For instance, how did Spanish topography and tradition form the story of Ferdinand the Bull?
Right here’s a listing of image books that happen around the globe to get you began.
Map in items
Minimize items out of a map of america (small or massive, relying on the grade you educate) and have college students guess which state it comes from primarily based on what they see. Is there ocean shoreline? A lake? Heaps farmland? Can college students work collectively to match every bit with the state it comes from?
Create a category atlas
Give college students massive items of paper and analysis instruments. Assign them every a rustic to analysis and create an atlas web page. Then, show all of the atlas pages in a public house to allow them to examine different international locations.
Geography Theme 2: Place
Place is about understanding the human and bodily traits of a location.
Bodily traits are issues like mountains, rivers, seashores, local weather, and animal and vegetation. Take into consideration what you’d see on a topographical map. Utilizing bodily traits, a spot might be described as dry, arid, and populated by cacti and desert animals.
Human traits are issues that folks have made that outline a spot. That might be structure, farms and land use, spiritual practices, political methods, transportation, and/or communication. Utilizing human traits, a spot might be described as a complicated, Spanish-speaking democracy with a Catholic majority.
Place is vital as a result of the traits of a spot affect how people work together with the setting. For instance, the quantity of rain impacts which crops can develop. Or a spot with a redwood forest could create a logging trade in a single space.
And place is vital for understanding cultural variety. Tradition is formed by place, and totally different areas have totally different traditions and beliefs which can be formed by place.
How To Train Place
Have college students discover the concept of place by working with every aspect—bodily and human—in varied initiatives and all of sudden.
Create your personal nation
A mission like having college students create their very own nation asks them to suppose by way of the traits of a rustic they create, in addition to the options of the world they select to position it on the globe.
Get it: Create Your Personal Nation lesson
Create an actual world map
Watch a video in regards to the problem of making a map of the world like this one:
Then, have college students deal with the problem of easy methods to signify the world map. How have cartographers already solved this downside? What different concepts do college students have?
Put collectively a soil report
Have college students request soil samples from individuals they know across the nation and even the world. After you have the soil samples, examine them. What is comparable? What’s totally different? How does the composition of the soil let you know in regards to the place it’s from?
Compile a climate report
Assign every scholar or group of scholars a metropolis around the globe. Sooner or later every week or for a couple of weeks in a row, college students search for the climate for that metropolis, report the climate highlights, and hold observe of the climate patterns. When college students have sufficient recorded data, have them analyze and current the info. Which metropolis has the best temperature? The bottom? The most important vary? Smallest vary? What can climate let you know about a spot?
Examine maps
Watch a video on how maps have been fallacious all through historical past:
Then, evaluation various kinds of maps and focus on what every map exhibits and what sort of knowledge cartographers want to gather to create it.
Learn extra: Google Earth Hacks To Use Now
Geography Theme 3: Human-Surroundings Interactions
Human-environment interplay is the consideration of how people adapt to and modify the setting. So, it’s how individuals have formed the land, in optimistic and detrimental methods, and the way the setting shapes individuals. For instance, human-environment interplay explores how individuals dwelling in chilly climates use pure gasoline to warmth houses, whereas in additional temperate climates, individuals use different strategies of heating and cooling. One other instance is how the development of dams impacts individuals (extra individuals can reside in an space) and the setting (some animals could thrive whereas others could not; a lake could also be created the place there wasn’t one earlier than).
People are at all times shifting and impacting the land, so this theme is vital to know how human actions influence the planet and the ensuing penalties.
How To Train Human-Surroundings Interactions
Instructing human-environment interactions begins with serving to children perceive how they profit from and influence their very own setting, and increasing from there.
Make a listing of needs and desires
Have college students work collectively to record their needs and desires. How do they get their needs and desires from their present metropolis? How may their needs and desires change and be met in the event that they lived in a distinct place?
Calculate inhabitants change
Acquire inhabitants statistics to your city going again at the least 50 years. When college students current and analyze the info, what do they discover? What developments do they see? What might need influenced these developments? For an extension, invite a neighborhood historian into class to speak in regards to the inhabitants developments and historical past of your space.
Go pure
Examine the crops that develop naturally in your space and create a picture of what a pure yard would appear to be. Would there be much less grass since you reside in a dry space? Or would there be tall crops since you reside in a spot with numerous rain? Have college students create a marketing campaign to encourage individuals to let yards go “wild.”
Do a vanishing-island mission
After watching a 9-minute movie in regards to the Isle de Jean Charles, a tiny island neighborhood off the Louisiana coast, college students study how the modifications on the island are impacting individuals who reside there. Then, they be taught extra in regards to the results of hurricanes for individuals who reside on the coast.
Be taught extra: A Vanishing Island lesson at PBS LearningMedia
Geography Theme 4: Motion
Motion research the ways in which concepts, items, sources, communication, and developments journey around the globe. This contains migration and immigration. Motion might be cellular phone reception transferring around the globe, or refugees fleeing a rustic throughout warfare.
Motion is damaged into differing types:
- Human migration: when individuals transfer from one place to a different both voluntarily or involuntarily
- Transportation of products and companies: transferring merchandise from the place they’re made to a different place
- Communication of concepts: dissemination of knowledge by way of varied channels
- Cultural diffusion: when cultural traits unfold from one society to a different
- A giant theme in motion is globalization and the influence of globalization on economies around the globe.
How To Train Motion
Instructing motion entails introducing college students to new matters, like transport, and utilizing acquainted instruments, like maps.
Examine motion
Learn a e book like I Ship by Kelly Rice Schmitt and use the e book’s narrative to hint how items transfer from one place to a different by way of transport routes.
Purchase it: I Ship at Amazon
Get instructing information: I Ship Instructing Information at Lerner Publishing
Create a journey map
Have college students create a listing of locations that they wish to go to around the globe. How would they get to every location? Have college students create a map of how they’d get from their hometown to every place. Can they consider inventive methods to maneuver from one place to a different? For instance, are there any transport routes that go out of your city to a different nation? Or do you need to go to any locations which can be shut sufficient to journey to through hot-air balloon?
Right here’s easy methods to make a map utilizing Google Maps:
Create a household motion map
Ask college students to ask their dad and mom and grandparents the place their household got here from and create a category map of how individuals moved and immigrated to your city. Notice that one household could have multiple immigration or migration route.
Find out about push and pull elements
Watch a video about push and pull elements and migration, like this one:
Then, assign college students a area and have them analysis why persons are both transferring to or from that area. Some areas to incorporate: Syria, america, Pakistan, India, Ukraine.
Use the World Migration Report 2020 for a visualization.
Geography Theme 5: Area
Areas divide the world into items for research. Every area has some attribute that unites it.
- Formal areas: areas with official boundaries, like cities, states, international locations
- Practical areas: areas which can be outlined by connections, just like the suburbs round a metropolis that create a area
- Vernacular areas: perceived areas like “the Midwest.” There are not any official boundaries, however these areas are usually understood.
Learning cultural areas helps college students perceive how societies have developed over time and the way setting shapes human tradition.
How To Train Area
Train area by creating areas and dealing with ideas that assist outline areas, like time zones and artifacts.
Map your college area
Use college students’ addresses to create the area to your class. Then, focus on the bodily options. What bodily options are included? What man-made options are included? How do the options which can be included affect the expertise of dwelling there?
Create a wall of time zones
Learn a e book like On the Identical Second Across the World by Clotilde Perrin and introduce the concept of time zones. Create a clock wall to your room that exhibits the time zones in numerous cities around the globe.
Purchase it: On the Identical Second Across the World at Amazon
Examine cultural artifacts
Take a look at stamps or cash from around the globe. What do totally different international locations embrace on their stamps or cash? How does their area and tradition influence cash or stamps?
