Teacher Action Plan
Title: Using The Greatest Places to Introduce
Geographic Inquiry
Teacher: Stephen Prendergast
School: St. Charles Borromeo Academy
2808 Cadiz St., San Diego, CA 92020
(619) 223-8544
E-mail: SPrencga@aol.com
Overview: This mini unit uses The Greatest
Places animatic as a vehicle through which students will
stretch their knowledge and understanding of the world. Students use
inquiry methods to attempt to identify the locations of The
Greatest Places and extend to identify other possibly similar
locations.
Grade Level: Middle School (Developed for Grade 7
World Geography)
Greatest Places Themes: Diversity,
Spatial Perspectives, Systems
Geography Standards Alignment:
Standard 1 : How to use maps and other geographic
representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process, anal
information to make inferences about the location of seven places
around the world.
Standard 3 : How to analyze the spatial organization of
people, places, and environments on Earth's surface
Standard 4 : The physical and human characteristics of
places.
Standard 5 : That people create regions to interpret Earth's
complexity.
Standard 8 : The characteristics and spatial distribution of
ecosystems on Earth's surface.
Integration Strategies: This unit integrates
writing skills (Language Arts) and spatial perspective (Art) in the
analyzing activities and project board.
Time Needed: 5 days
Objectives:
1) Students will analyze visual information to make inferences about
the location of seven places.
2) Students will collaborate in an analysis of the seven places
through simple groups and jigsawing.
3) Student groups will engage in inquiry strategies to acquire
additional information on places.
4) Students will identify possible locations for the seven places as
well as similar places/regions around the world and explain the
similarities.
Materials: The Greatest Places
animatic, TV/VCR, resource materials (atlases, encyclopedias,
magazines, textbooks, thematic maps, CD/ROM), art materials for
presentation boards (poster board, graph paper, colored pens/pencils,
glue).
Activities:
Day 1 :
Unit opens with a silent viewing of The Greatest Places
animatic by places, beginning with the section on Madagascar.
Following each place, the video is stopped and students have 2
minutes for a quick write on what they have seen (ideas, impressions,
thoughts, questions) focusing on elements that would help in
identifying the location of that place.
After viewing entire video, students are organized into groups of 4-5
to discuss possible locations for each place shown. Group members
share clues they found in the video. Students have 10 minutes to
discuss their ideas. Groups may use atlases and other resource
materials to aid in their discussions.
After initial discussion, students jigsaw with other groups to share
ideas and information with new people. Groups reassemble to share new
information and hypothesize locations.
Day 2 :
Students view silent video again (places only) and discuss new
thoughts and ideas.
Groups formulate one yes/no question for each place (not related to
the name of the location). Groups ask questions in turn, one place at
a time. Teacher answers yes or no to each question.
Following final questions, groups attempt to map seven Greatest
Places on an outline map of the world. Class then discusses
possible locations for each place. Correct answers are noted and
incorrect locations are analyzed. After all Greatest
Places are correctly located, class discusses difficulties in
identifying, and clues and thought strands used.
Day 3 :
Students are organized into 7 Greatest Places teams to
study each individual place. Research is done in class and outside.
For each individual place, students identify latitude and longitude,
size, elevation, climate (rainfall, temperatures, prevailing winds),
population, flora and fauna, and miscellaneous facts. What elements
identify their Greatest Place as a region as well as a
specific place?
Groups also attempt to identify other regions around the world that
may be similar in several ways to their assigned Greatest
Place .
Day 4 :
Groups continue and complete research and develop a project board on
their Greatest Place and a series of five questions which can be
answered from their board.
Day 5 :
Groups present Greatest Place research (5-7 minutes) and
explain project boards. Following presentations, boards are displayed
so that students can read boards and attempt to answer questions.
Answers to questions will be turned in with summary.
As homework, students write individual summaries on the experience
from this unit. Summaries should detail what new information they
have learned and what kinds of generalizations they can now make
about the world.
Assessment Strategies:
1) Student groups will map the possible locations for the seven
Greatest Places and be able to support their
decisions.
2) Students will create a Greatest Places Investigation
Project Board to present specific information about one Greatest
Place and other places/regions of the world that may have
similarities to their assigned Greatest Place.
3) Students will write individual summaries detailing their new
breadth of knowledge and the generalizations they have been able to
make about the world.
The Greatest Places Investigation Project
Board
The Investigation Project Board presents the basic data of an
individual Greatest Place (i.e., latitude and longitude, elevation,
climate, population, flora and fauna, and other miscellaneous
information) based on research and notes from the video. It also
presents the location of the Greatest Place and locations and
explanations of other places/regions that may be similar.
Latitude and longitude, elevation, and population should be presented
in the form of an information chart. When possible, ranges of
information should be given for the entire area rather than for a
single point. Climate data should include temperature, rainfall, and
prevailing winds. Temperature and rainfall should be presented in the
form of a climate graph which combines a temperature line graph
(monthly averages) and a rainfall bar graph (monthly averages). Wind
information may be presented in the data chart or along with the
temperature/rainfall graph. Information on flora and fauna and
miscellaneous facts may be presented as a table or in paragraph form.
Pictures may be included of flora, fauna, people, and other
information if available.
Each Project Board includes two maps. One map is of the specific
region of the Greatest Place, including physical and human features.
This map may have pictures included, but they are not required. The
second map is a world map showing the location of the Greatest Place
as well as the locations of regions with similarities.
The final element of the Project Board is a description of each
related region explaining how it is similar.
Each Project Board includes five questions about the Greatest Place
(and its related region[s]) which can be answered from the
information on the board or by analyzing the information
presented.
Time Line: Unit will be done during the second week
of the school year as an introduction into the study of geography and
geographic inquiry.