Physical Geography of North America
Lesson One:
Lesson Two:
Lesson Three:
Lesson Four:
Lesson Five:
Lesson Six:
Lesson Seven:
- Review what students already now about Geography
- What Video A and Video B and asked them what they notice and why I would choose to show them these videos.
- Students will follow the presentation on What is Geography and help create definitions for some of the terminology.
- Students will familiarize themselves with an atlas by completing this atlas search.
Lesson Two:
- Introduce the Five Themes of Geography by having students complete a note sheet from a gallery walk around the classroom.
- Now students will apply this new knowledge and complete a city search ( scroll to the bottom) within the framework of the Five Themes. They will need to pick two cities, neither of which can be in Canada, and at least one has to be outside of North America. They will need to fill in information for each of the Fives Themes.
Lesson Three:
- Compass and Latitude/Longitude Slides. Students will start off with a white board and protractor. Following along from the slides, they will draw a circle and label the Cardinal Directions and degree values. Completing another lap around the circle, students will add in the Ordinal Directions and value. On a final lap they will add in the next 16 points, so half “boxing” the compass.
- Explain the difference between True North and Magnetic North and how it's moving.
- Next students will clean their boards and draw another large circle and smaller circle. Explain how there are imaginary lines of latitude and longitude on our earth and how they are used to pinpoint locations, such as with GPS. Get them to start by drawing and labeling the Prime Meridian and Equator on the large circle. The small circle will represent the back of the earth and they can draw the International Date Line there. Explain how Samoa changed the IDL. Back to the large circle. Students will add in the other lines and their values.
- Recap why we have seasons and the seasonal date changes.
- If more practice is needed, take students outside to draw a larger version with chalk and label the lines.
- Review how to determine/estimate lat/long values. Students will complete a worksheet finding the locations of several Canadian and American cities. Then they will create a mini worksheet of global cities, from outside of North America, with the answers on the back. This can be swapped with peers to check for accuracy.
Lesson Four:
- Exact VS Relative Location. Now that exact location (latitude and longitude) have been explained, we will play a couple rounds of 20 Questions to demonstrate relative location. To start off with, get them to describe directions for traveling from point A in town to point B. What are the landmarks that we commonly use? Pick a student to go hide in the school, in one spot and not moving, who has a phone and can message another student in class. Get the students remaining in class to ask where the student is by only asking yes or no questions. If the class can determine where the student is before asking all 20 questions, then they win. If the student still isn't found, then they win.
- Time Zones: Students will take notes from the GSlides, only those that are in red will need to be written down for their fill in the blank notes.
- This is followed by a Time Zone worksheet. Students will need to colour in and label the different time zones and answer the questions.
- Following the worksheet, if students are done, they will create their own questions with the focus of “Hockey Night in Canada.” Students will create 10 questions asking what time will it be in Team A’s location if Team A is playing Team B at Team B’s home.
Lesson Five:
- Physical Regions Map of Canada: Students will need textbooks and pencil crayons for this lesson. They will use their textbooks as a resource to fill in the chart on the large sheet of paper describing the physical regions of North America, (Location, Topography, Climate & Vegetation). On the front of that sheet will be an outline of Canada, provincial lines included. From the map on page 163 of the older edition of Crossroads, students will overlay the physical regions and colour them in according to the details provided on the assignment sheet. They will also label the oceans and bays, provinces and provincial capitals, a compass rose and Penticton, as listed on the assignment sheet.
Lesson Six:
- The summative assessment for this unit will be the students imaging they are traveling across Canada. Students will travel across five regions, visiting two cities per region (describing the cities using at least three Theme of Geography). You need to include pictures, climate graphs and cultural characteristics.
Lesson Seven:
- Article Annotation: students (in pairs if they want) will read three titles and choose one article to annotate and hand in.
- Students will complete the guided annotation by making predictions and notes, and asking questions directly on the articles.