Understanding Geography
Below are links to various materials we've created to support students' work on the unit theme: Our Land.
- Unit Bibliography: This is a list of supplementary materials to help you to meet the needs of individual students in your classroom.
- Classroom Activities: To extend instruction, here are some creative activities you can print and use in your classroom.
- Hometown Menu (Language Arts/Social Studies)
- Stateside Challenge (Art/Language Arts/Social Studies)
- Theme Project Organizer: This is a worksheet you can print and distribute to students to help them track their work on the Theme Project.
- Theme Project Links: Here are Internet resources for students to use while working on the Theme Project.
Here are links to Internet resources that can be used to support instruction of the “Think Like a Geographer” feature for this unit: How Do Geographers Acquire and Use Information?
- Making Maps Easy to Read
- Maps is a useful resource on map design and map reading created by the UK Social Science Research Council. This site hosts several excellent graphics that would be great for any class on map reading. Note: The site uses high school level language.
- http://richardphillips.org.uk/maps/
- Welcome to the USGS - U.S. Geological Survey
- The U.S. Geological Survey Home Page hosts a large number of educational resources for teachers and students interested in cartography, geography, and related subjects, as well as a variety of fact sheets, links to related educational sites, and more. You can also order USGS materials from this site.
- http://www.usgs.gov/
Here are links to Internet resources that can be used to support instruction of the “Citizenship” feature for this unit: What Is a State?
- 50 States and Capitals
- This site includes a map of the Unites States, as well as maps of the 50 states. It also includes information about the state capitals, education, communities, park systems, population and many other interesting general facts.
- http://www.50states.com/
- U.S. States
- Every U.S. state has a home page, and this Web site by Global Computing has them all.
- http://www.globalcomputing.com/states.html