5 Themes of Geography: Your Home

Standards

G 1.1, G 1.2, G 1.3, G 1.4

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to name and define the 5 themes of Geography. Students will be able to apply the five themes of geography to where they live.

Essential Question:

What are the 5 Themes of Geography?

Materials

-Blank Paper

-Definition of 5 Themes of Geography

-Chart Paper

-5 Themes Foldable

Activating Prior Knowledge

Students answer: What do you think geography is? Write a few sentences on what you already know, think you know, or can guess about geography.

Teacher Directed:

Students should be give the foldable do record definitions for each Theme of Geography, plus examples. 

Location tells us where a place is located. Geographers use cardinal directions and latitude and longitude to find a places location. Use http://www.satsig.net/maps/lat-long-finder.htm to find the latitude and longitude of Yanceyville, NC.

Regions are places that are grouped together because they have something in common. This could be a common population, history, climate, etc. Can students come up with any examples of regions?

Place is used to describe the physical and human characteristics of somewhere such as how many people there are, what the climate is like, etc.

Movement: this helps geographers study how things move to other places. How did a tradition move from one country to another 100 years ago? How does music made in China become popular in the US? What do we have today that makes it easy for our ideas to reach the entire world in seconds? What challenges do you think people 60 years ago had?

Human/Environment Interaction is used to study how our environment hurts/helps us and how we help/hurt our environment. Can students think of ways our environment helps us/hurts us or how we could hurt/help our environment

Guided Practice:

Use chart paper to apply the 5 Themes of Geography to your school together. This will serve as something for your students to look back at later.

Independent Practice:

Students will receive a blank piece of white paper. They will divide the paper into five blocks with a pencil. Each box should be labeled a theme of geography. They will apply the 5 Themes to where they live.

Example:

Location: Address

Region: mountains, intercostal, midwest, mild climate

Place: people, language spoken

Movement: How do people/info get to your house, move around your house? Walk, Car, Bike, Bus, phone, Mail

Human Environmental Interaction: Recycling, chop down trees, gardening

Students should write at least 2 complete sentences about each of the 5 Themes of Geography and how they apply to their home. They also need to draw a picture that represents what they talked about in the sentences.