Curated OER
New Haven's Hill Neighborhood
Ninth graders examine the area around their school known as Hill neighborhood. In groups, they use maps to discover how the area has changed over time and how the city serves its residents. They identify the cause and effect...
Curated OER
Mental Maps
Middle schoolers analyze and evaluate how they mentally organize information. They participate in a visualization exercise, create a sketch of a mental map of their neighborhood, state, country, and the world, and complete a Mental Map...
Curated OER
Describe My City
Learners explore the functions of cities by creating a visual image of their own neighborhood. Students diagram, list, and label the major businesses and cultural areas of the neighborhood where they grew up, then write a letter to a...
Curated OER
How Far Did They Go?
Students create a map. In this direction and distance lesson, students come up with familiar places in the community and calculate the distances from these places to the school. Students create a map that displays these places and their...
Curated OER
Any Town, USA
Students launch an investigation of their home town by creating a mental map and examining the livability factors from their perspective. After completing their map, students write a brief description of their town
Curated OER
The Gingerbread Friend Is Loose!
Students explore the story of the Gingerbread Man, and compare the story's neighbors and neighborhoods with those of their school. They bake Gingerbread Friends cookies, retell the story, take a neighborhood walk, and create a class book.
Curated OER
Deciphering Community
Students explore the concept of a community. They identify and group various kinds of communities. Students create a concept map exemplifying their membership in different communities. They write a narrative describing their...
Curated OER
Monument Museum
Students design monuments, taking into account what is known about geometric shapes and measuring. Students create a museum complete with monuments and descritions of the monuments. Students provide guides at each monument in order to...
Arts Midwest
The Joy Luck Club: Culture and History
Explore San Francisco's Chinatown in a lesson plan about the first few chapters of The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. Kids research Chinatown on the Internet and create a virtual tour of the neighborhood, including the foods, cultural events,...
Curated OER
Welcome to My World
Elementary schoolers discuss what a community is, and what their community has to offer them. They create posters, or flyers for the different businesses or places in their community to place around their school. After the students have...
Curated OER
Cartography Project
A activity involving mapping, the use of a compass, writing and following directions, and exploring the first two themes of geography is here for you. Learners create original maps that show the routes they take through their own...
Curated OER
A Contouring We Go
Students examine the built environment and infrastructures of their community by constructing contour equipment, using the equipment, and comparing their results to current topographical maps of the same area
Schools Linking Network & Lifeworlds Learning
How Do We All Live Together?
Explore the concepts of community and point of view with these activities complementing the children's book Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne. Following a class reading of the story, ask students to either draw a map of the...
Foreign Policy Research Institute
Exploring Korea
A thorough and fun lesson on Korea! In groups of four (Social Chair, Historian, Translator, Travel Agent) class members research North and South Korea to determine a good location for an overseas institute for studying abroad. Once this...
Curated OER
Home: the Story of Maine "A Love for the Land": Where Are You? Who Are You?
Students investigate their neighborhood both as it is now and as it was 100 years ago. They take a walk around their neighborhood and fill out a worksheet before completing a worksheet.
Curated OER
Other kinds of groups- part 4 of 5
Students compare and contrast characteristics of groups. Students create graphs using various symbols of different groups. Students make maps of their neighborhood 'groups'.
Curated OER
Navigating Your Community
Learners draw a map from memory describing the route between their classroom and the gym including a legend, a compass rose, a map scale, symbols, and a landmark at every change of direction. They then retrace their steps in their maps...
Curated OER
Communities Around the World
Students investigate the idea of community by taking a field trip. In this civics lesson plan, students participate in a supervised walk around their neighborhood while identifying characteristics and objects that make their home town...
Curated OER
Nina Bonita: Culture and Beauty
Students read Nina Bonita by Ana Maria Machado. In this reading comprehension/ geography lesson, students recall various parts of the story and create a map of where the rabbit traveled throughout the story. They participate in group...
Curated OER
My Community
Students identify how their school has changed. For this local community lesson, students listen to a brief history of their town and school and interview someone that graduated from their school. Students then create a map of their...
Curated OER
Discovering the Local Community
Third graders create a mini-atlas of the human and physical characteristics of their local community, which includes landforms, climate, vegetation, population, and economics. They use nonfiction map-related resources to obtain ...
Curated OER
Visiting a Neighborhood Site
Middle schoolers interview senior citizens about life in the old days. Sharing research with their classmates, they create their own database. They use technology to enhance the information they gathered from the senior citizens.
Curated OER
Mapping Human Rights in Our Community
Students work in groups to draw a map of their town or neighborhood. They include their homes, major public buildings and places. Students analyze their maps from a human rights perspective.
Curated OER
Does Conflict Shape Nations? The Middle East
Learners locate settlements and observe patterns in the size and distribution of cities using maps, graphics, and other information. They explain the processes that have caused cities to grow.