Geography Lesson

Lesson Plan Components NAME: Charlotte Cameron

State Content Standard and/or Common Core Standard(s):

Target Standard(s): Geography Strand: Places and Regions: 6. Regions can be determined using data related to various criteria including land form, climate, population, and cultural and economic
characteristics.
Supporting Standard(s): -Geography Strand: Spatial Thinking and Skills: 4. Geographic tools can be used to gather process, and report information about people, places, and environments.
Cartographers decide which information to include in maps.
-SL.5.4 Report on a topic or text or present an opinion, sequencing ideas logically and using appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details to support main ideas or themes;
speak clearly at an understandable pace.

Instructional Setting: whole group, individual, and partner work

Lesson Focus:
-Students are learning about different geographic terms and how to read maps. This lesson will focus on understanding how regions are defined and
having a better understanding of terms to create a map.
Learning Objective/Target(s): The objective/target must include 3 parts: the context, the skill & the criteria. Objective(s) should be observable and measurable. It could start with the
context, “Using algebra tiles. . . or Comparing two maps,…”
-Using sentence strips with geography facts, students will be able to identify the untrue statements and edit 4/5 correctly.

Assessment Measures:
Formative Assessment(s): assessment that takes place during &/or after the lesson
-Observation of discussions among students
-True/false statements
Summative Assessment(s): assessment that takes place after a defined instructional period (typically at the end of a project, unit, course, semester, program, or school year)
-Salt-dough maps (this activity will be completed after this lesson, but ties in at the end)

Differentiation & UDL: Describe how you will differentiate content, process and/or product for specific students during this lesson.
___6___# of Students on IEPs/504 Plans ___1___# of Students with Specific Language Needs (ELL & Speech/Communication Needs)
___1___# of Students who are Advanced ___0___#of Students with other Learning Needs
***Provide support with reading or scripting writing. Provide explicit instruction of what to do.

Materials:
 Google slides to guide the lesson
 Strips of “true/false” statements about geography terms (enough for pairs)
 Projector and Doc Cam

Prior Knowledge: Prerequisite knowledge, skill &/or data. Objectives and/or data from previous lesson, and previously learned concepts related to this lesson.
 Through their Daily Geography weekly assignments, students should be aware of many of these terms. They have seen different kinds of maps.

INSTRUCTIONAL DELIVERY PLAN (step-by-step sequence)
Engage/Anticipatory Set/Opening
Teacher’s Actions
1. “Our Daily Geo has helped us create an
understanding of geography and today I want to
talk about some key terms”
2. What is this a photo of? Challenge students to
share what the continents are. [slide 2]
3. What does this map show us? (Connect to
physical maps) Have students turn & talk about
physical maps. [slide 3]
4. Another physical map, but what does it
specifically show us? [slide 4]
5. What is special about this map? (connect to
policial map) Have students turn & talk about
political maps. [slide 5]
6. What type of map is this? How do they know?
(this is where we will begin to talk about how to
define regions) [slide 6]
Body of Lesson
Teacher’s Actions
1. Have students turn and talk about how a
Geographer might define a region? How do they
decide that __(pick a state)__ is in the _(share the
region)__ or _(share another reason)_? [slide 7]
2. Discuss some answers and share the definition of
region. [slide 8]
3. Break done how Geographers define regions by
Geography Lesson
Students’ Actions Time Differentiation &/or UDL
1. Share that the photo is of the 10 mins  Allow students to turn & talk
world/continents. Talk about the different about different questions to
names of the continents. help students feel welcomed.
2. North America/physical features of North
America. Talk about what physical maps are.
3. The ouline of different countries in North
America, or where the United States is
located.
4. Share the photo is of a political map. Turn
and talk about what political maps are.
5. The last map shows regions of the United
States of America. Point out the legend that
shares information about which regions.
Might point out that it is a map that shows the
different states in the United States of
America.
Students’ Actions Time Differentiation &/or UDL
1. Turn and talk about what Geographers might 15 mins  For students on IEP or
use to define regions. struggling readers: walk the
room to read the sentences.
2. Share with the class and hear the definition.
 Assign heterogeneous parings:
3. Volunteers share what they know about the if COVID seating allows.
different terms before hearing the definition.
4. See and talk about different examples of land

explaining the terms: climate, population,
economy, culture, land forms (share example
photos). How students attempt to share what a
term means before you share. [slides 9-13]
4. Ask students to share what land forms they know
about, then show the photos of a variety of
examples for students to see. [slides 14-18]
Geography Lesson
forms.
5. Students are going to sort sentence strips into
two categories of true and false. They will
correct the false statements to make them true
with a partner.

5. “Now that we have reviewed or relearned

different terms that geographers need to know, we
are going to find the truth.” Have students work
with partners to sort different sentences into two
categories of “truth” and “false.”

6. Hand out the sentence strips and instruct students

to correct the false statements once they
determine which ones are untrue.

7. Walk the room to talk to different pairs about

their thinking.

Explain/Discussion

Teacher’s Actions Students’ Actions Time Differentiation &/or UDL

1. Have students wrap up and come together as a
class to sort the strips and correct the false ones.
2. Ask students if they know what a Cartographer
does, then explain they are the people who create
maps.
3. Share that they are going to be a Cartographer
with creating a salt-dough map of a state,
including different features. [slide 19 & 20]
1. Come together as a class to sort the strips and 10 min  For students on IEPs or
talk about how to correct the false ones. struggling readers: use the doc
cam to display how they were
2. Share what they might know about a sorted.
Cartographer.
3. Get an assigned state and learn the
requirements for their salt-dough map project.

4. Assign a state and talk about the requirements for

their salt map, so they can start research.
 Geography Lesson
Closing/Summary & Check for Understanding [At the end of the lesson, engage in a closure (wrap-up) to help students connect what they have learned to the real world and/or to expand on
what they learned.]
Teacher’s Actions Students’ Actions Time Differentiation &/or UDL
**This section is combined with the two above. **Section combined with two above.

Homework/Assignment

To begin research on their state for the salt map project.

Lesson Reflection (To be completed after the lesson is taught and the reflection must have supporting evidence/data.)

1. Reflect on specifics in your instructional procedures. (This is to be written in first person. Note what worked, what didn’t work; be sure to reflect not report.)
I had provoked great conversations with students and welcomed any opinion they had. One student shared her opinion about Springfield's economy and how they
choose their money in a negative way. I had reminded her and the class that it's okay to feel that way, but not everyone might. Using student's geography glossary,
allowed for students to see how beneficial that resource might be to them. Most of the things learned in this lesson was review, but were areas the students still struggled
to understand. I believe incorporating the arts and allowing students to use their imagination is important. They had a blast creating their salt dough map, but did make a
mess. In the future when doing this activity with students, I will bring a broom and allow for more clean up time. Overall, I think the discussion in the beginning and the
project in the end worked. I would have students pick states in a “more” fair way next time because I just randomly selected students to pick a state and this could be
viewed unfairly.

2. State connections to research and theory for both instructional practices and student learning.
There has been research on using hands-on activities in the classroom and how it promotes creative thinking, more engagement, and problem solving. This lesson
has students physically creating a model of their selected state and then researching different facts about that state. Students were engaged because it was exciting to
create the dough and then attempt to make the shape of their state.

3a. Record and analyze data from formative assessments.

3b. Analyze and reflect on summative assessment if appropriate.
Students were able to answer my questions during the discussion/review, with some time to think about their answer. They were able to talk to someone next to
them and create a better understanding of the geography terms at hand. Later when creating their salt dough maps, they had a lot of fun and were able to provide the
required information about their specific state, along with present their work to the class.

4. Based on 1 & 3, what will you do for your next lesson?

For my next lesson, I will demostrate to students how to effectively conduct research. I will teach them how to cite their work (not plagiarizing) and how to find
reliable resources.