Curated OER
What do Maps Show: How to Read a Topographic Map
Students identify the characteristics of topographical maps. Using examples, they practice reading them and describing the information they gather from them. They also discover how to use the website from the U.S. Geological Survey.
Curated OER
What Do Maps Show?: Lesson 4 How to Read a Topographic Map
Students examine the use of topographic maps as two dimensional representations that show elevations and slopes with contour lines. They read maps of the Salt Lake City, Utah area and complete the associated worksheets that show map...
Curated OER
Mapping
Introduce middle or high schoolers to topographic maps with this PowerPoint. After a review of longitude and latitude, display and describe contour lines and intervals. Also explain map scale. This is a useful presentation for a social...
Curated OER
What Do Maps Show?
This teaching packet is for grades five through eight, and it is organized around geographic themes: location, place, relationships, movement, and regions. There are four full lessons that are complete with posters, weblinks, and...
Curated OER
Topographic Mapping Skills
In this geography worksheet, students read an excerpt about topographic maps and why they are useful for various jobs. They also respond to eleven questions that follow related to the excerpt and locating specific map points on the map...
Curated OER
We're on the Map!
Students identify a variety of topographic map symbols. They make generalizations about an unidentified community by reading and interpreting map symbols.
Curated OER
Introduction To Topographic Map Activities
Students discuss different types of maps, their similarities and differences. Using a Topographical Maps CD-rom program students create their own map.
Academy of American Poets
Teach This Poem: "Maps" by Yesenia Montilla
After examining a physical map of the world, learners conduct a close reading of Yesenia Montilla's poem "Maps." They note the interesting words and phrases, the way the poem is structured, and list questions they might have. After...
Curated OER
Topo Map Mania!
Students read and use topographical maps. They also use a compass to find bearing to an object on a map and in the classroom. Ask your students how they might travel to somewhere they have never been to befo
Curated OER
3-D Topographic Maps
Students create a 3-D topographic map. In this map building lesson, students use cardboard to create a topographic map of the Catskills mountain region.
Curated OER
Topographic Maps Worksheet
In this geography skills worksheet, students respond to 37 multi-part questions that require them to read and interpret topographic maps.
Curated OER
Designing a Hiking Trail
Put your students' map skills to the test with this engaging cross-curricular project. Given the task of developing new hiking trails for their local community, young cartographers must map out beginner and intermediate paths that meet a...
Curated OER
Understanding Topographic Maps
Underclassmen create a cone-shaped landform and then draw a contour map for it. Then they examine a quadrangle (which was easily located with an online search), and relate it to what they experienced. The accompanying worksheet is...
National Endowment for the Humanities
On This Day With Lewis and Clark
Walk in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark as they discover the wonders, beauty, and dangers of the American frontier. After gaining background knowledge about Thomas Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase, young explorers use primary...
Curated OER
Put Your Face on the Map
Young scholars investigate topography and contour lines by examining a human face. In this mapping lesson, students create a plaster cast of a face and create a map of the contours of the face one centimeter at a time. Young scholars...
Curated OER
Take a Hike
In this geography skills worksheet, students respond to 9 questions that require them to read topographic maps and interpret them. The topographic maps are not included.
Curated OER
Planning A Railroad Online Lesson
Students plan a route across Donner Summit using topographical maps in order to understand the challenges involved in constructing the railroad in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. In this history lesson, students first discover how to read...
Curated OER
Project Map: Scale Worksheet
In this map reading worksheet, students determine the distance from a plotted treasure on a topographic map. They must adjust for magnetic declination.
Curated OER
Map It!
Fourth graders demonstrate map making skills by using the computer to create maps of the geographic features, regions, and economy for their state.
Curated OER
Map Lesson Plan
Fourth graders locate and label major sites related to the Revolutionary War in the Hudson River Valley. They examine topographical features of each site and list a few of these features and list two advantages of each military site.
National Park Service
Remembering Pearl Harbor: The USS Arizona Memorial
Young historians use primary source materials to investigate the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the USS Arizona. After reading background articles and studying maps and images of the attack, class members consider whether...
Curated OER
Play Doh Map of Your State
Students create a state map using Playdoh. In this hands-on state geography lesson, students work in groups to form a three-dimensional map of their state using Playdoh made at home following a (given) recipe. Students use four colors...
Curated OER
Trailblazers- Now and Then
Young scholars examine and study the routes of trailblazers. In this American history lesson, students find a route on a map and compare that to the route of trailblazers. Young scholars will then compare that map with a topographical...