Sixth Grade Project: Mapping Your Neighborhood



Amount of Time Needed

One fifty-minute class period.


Material Needed

A projector connected to a computer with internet access, a screen for the projector, and a large sheet of paper with markers for each group.


Objectives

  1. Interpret geographic information from a graph or chart and construct a graph or chart that conveys geographic information (e.g., about rainfall, temperature, or population size).
  2. Explain the difference between absolute and relative location and give examples of different ways to indicate relative location for countries or cities across the world.

Procedure

  1. The instructor should give a brief demonstration to the digital scrapbook, with a focus on how to flip through and search the scrapbook.
  2. The class should explore the Google map and answer the discussion questions below.
  3. The class should then divide into small groups.
  4. Each group should draw a map of the school's neighborhood, and place at least six locations on the map.
  5. The class should meet back together and compare their maps. Which locations appear on all of the maps? How are the maps different?
  6. Students should discuss if they were to travel back to when Bettie was a student in the 1930’s, which of the places would be there? What locations have changed the most in the past eighty years?

Discussion Questions

  1. What types of locations appear the most on the map?
  2. What locations would Bettie’s classmates have put on a map (e.g., a library, a museum)?
  3. What do the locations on the map (made using the scrapbook) tell us about Bettie’s life while at Simmons College?

Download pdf of lesson plan.