Geonarratives: First Lesson Idea

Lesson Title: “Navigating by Landmarks”

Subject: Social Studies

Grade Level: Intermediate Grades 3-5

Purpose: Students to examine and apply the relationship between concrete landmarks, abstract written directions, and graphic representations on maps, and then develop their own landmark map for classroom use.

Key Activities: The key activities of this lesson include navigating and preview landmarks at the Earth Google Web site, Preview the MapQuest Web site, create both directions and maps, locate local map websites, such as the Guam Visitor’s Bureau or Chamber of Commerce, assemble necessary technology tools, gather a selection of local and [village] maps.

How Technology Enhances the Unit: This unit will be enhanced by geonarratives and Google Earth in the following ways: Students will visualize, construct and use mental maps of locales, regions, and the world that demonstrate understanding of relative location, direction, site, and shape; interpret, use, and distinguish various representations of the earth, such as maps, globes, and photographs; use appropriate resources, data sources, and geographic tools such as atlases, data bases, grid systems, charts, graphs, and maps to generate, manipulate, and interpret information; estimate distances and calculate scale; locate and distinguish among varying landforms and geographic features, such as mountains, plateaus, islands, and oceans; describe and speculate about physical system changes, such as season, climate and weather, and the water cycle; describe how people create places that reflect ideas, personality culture, and wants and needs as they design homes, playgrounds, classrooms, and the like; Examines the interactions of human beings and their physical environment, the use of land, building of cities, and ecosystem changes in selected locales and regions; Explore ways that the earth’s physical features having changed over time in the local region and beyond and how these changes may be connected to one another; Observe and speculate about social and economic effects of environmental changes and crises resulting from phenomena such as floods, storms, and drought; and consider existing uses and propose and evaluate alternative uses of resources and land in home, school, community, the region, and beyond.

Social Studies Standards for this lesson are: III, IV & VII

NETS Performance Indicators for Grades 3-5 are: 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10

Assessment: The teacher will assess student multimedia maps using a rubric jointly created by the teacher and the students; Teacher will assess student understanding of the relationship between the student-created maps, the printed map, and the MapQuest maps, either through brief written journal entries or individual student-teacher conferences. Criteria for an informal assessment might included: Sufficiency of detail; use of landmarks as opposed to cardinal direction; Different ways to get the same place Different scale and perspective, Conceptual understanding, Efficient and effective use of the Map Quest Website, Degree to which maps are base don landmarks, Efficient and effective use of the Google Earth Web site, Degree to which maps are based on landmarks

Resources: Computers with audio recording capability, word-processing, multimedia-authoring, mapping (e.g., MapMaker Toolkit, Neighborhood Map Machine) http://www.cnets.iste.org/

Web sites: Google Earth: www.googleearth.com; MapQuest: www.mapquest.com/; Cartography by Hammond, Inc.: http://19.41.39.5/hammond20.html; National Geographic: www.nationalgeographic.com/