Geography Awareness Week (Grades K-12)

November 16-22 is Geography Awareness Week, the culmination of Geography Action!, a conservation and awareness program sponsored by the National Geographic Society. Geography Awareness Week highlights the results of spring and summer activities around the theme for the year. Since 1987, Geography Awareness Week has promoted geographic literacy in schools, communities, and organizations and has spread the word about the importance of geography education. The theme this year is "Habitats: Home Sweet Home." GIS Day is Wednesday of Geography Awareness Week and focuses on the use of technology through Geographic Information Systems.

The beauty of a GIS system is that you can link different kinds of information together to analyze it in a new way. For instance, you can combine GIS technology and billing information from the local water company to estimate the amount of materials discharged from septic tanks in an area that is upstream from a wetland in order to locate areas of heavy discharge.[Courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey]

Connections

The one thing that all geographers have in common is maps, but as the theme of Geography Awareness Week indicates, geography is more than maps. It is a wide-ranging discipline with many practitioners who study Earth science and the environment--and some biology as well. The theme of this year is particularly useful for bridging between disciplines. Biology classes can explore the influence of habitat on the composition of species in a given area and the effect of habitat destruction on biodiversity levels. Earth science classes can investigate the effects of natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions on the surrounding habitat and species. The theme also offers a great opportunity to investigate the habitats right outside your classroom windows!

For each of the sections on the Geography Action! web site (see the Web Resources below), you'll find theme-based lesson plans for students in grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12, along with links to pictures and online activities. In two particularly interesting lessons, younger students perform a simulation to illustrate the interdependency between organisms in a local environment, and older students explore how knowledge of a city's history and geography can be used for city planning. The site's first section provides a primer on habitats, and then subsequent sections focus on specific habitats such as cities and suburbs and oceans and coasts.

Web Resources

1. NationalGeographic.Com
   
   http://www.nationalgeographic.com/index.html
   Grades K-12. The National Geographic web site includes information about activities, partners, events, and more. It also links to the National Geographic site, with the many resources National Geographic is known for, such as publications and access to maps that you can print and use in the classroom.
   
   
2. Internet Resources for Geography & Geology
   
   http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/internet/geog_geol_resources.html
   Grades 9-12. This excellent collection of web resources from the Geography Department at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, includes several specific lists of sites for Earth science teachers, including environment, geology, and physical geography sites.
   
   
3. USGS: Geographic Information Systems
   
   http://erg.usgs.gov/isb/pubs/gis_poster/
   Grades 9-12. The many colorful illustrations on this rich site help explain what GIS is and demonstrate its diverse uses. The site reveals the different kinds of data that can be digitized and entered into a GIS by presenting versions of the same map, each highlighting a different feature such as roads, rivers, elevation, geology, land use, and more. Real-life examples attest to the usefulness of GIS for such things as siting a water well and planning a response to an earthquake emergency. There's also a nice section on the history of GIS.
   
   
4. Geography for Life: The National Geography Standards, NCGE Tutorial
   
   http://www.ncge.org/publications/tutorial/
   Grades K-12. The National Council for Geographic Education web site includes this tutorial outlining and illustrating the National Geography Standards. The tutorial gives users an opportunity to test their understanding of specific standards by answering a question or two related to each standard.
   
   
5. U.S. Department of State: Geographic Learning Site
   
   http://future.state.gov/
   Grades K-12. Visit this site to make your geography and Earth science lessons relevant to what's happening in the world. The site includes discussions of the latest "hot spots," many of which have an environmental link, such as floods in Southeast Africa and global warming. The site also contains many valuable links to other geography-related sites.
   
   
6. Geography World
   
   http://members.aol.com/bowermanb/101.html
   Grades K-12. There is a link from this site to whatever you can think of that is even vaguely geographic, and there's probably a game or quiz to go with it. Geography World covers the gamut, from the physical/Earth science links to regions of the world.
   
   
7. Geography Action! Habitats: Home Sweet Home
   
   http://www.nationalgeographic.com/geographyaction/habitats/index.html
   Here's the official site for this year's Geography Awareness Week. If you would also like to access material from past years, visit http://www.nationalgeographic.com/geographyaction/.
   
   
8. Helping Your Child Learn Geography
   
   http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content/geog.html
   This resource provides parents and teachers with numerous straightforward activities that can be done with younger children (ages 10 and under) to spark their interest in geography. Learn how to turn everyday occurrences, like car trips, weather reports, or strolls through the neighborhood, into geographic learning opportunities.
   
   

Ready-to-Go Activities

1. Mathematics of Cartography: Mathematics Problems
   
   http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/pres/map/mapque.html
   This site contains four problems based on another web site. You can input two locations and have the site calculate the distance between the two, as well as provide the longitude and latitude of each. You can then see a map containing both places.
   
   
2. GIS Day Web site
   
   http://www.gisday.com
   Increasingly, computers generate the maps that geographers use. Check out this site to learn how to become involved with GIS Day. You'll find tips and materials for hosting an event and a search for locating one nearby (usually users or sellers of GIS equipment host the events and invite schools and the community in to learn about the technology). There are links to activities for students and short descriptions of previous GIS Day events that were held around the globe.
   
   
3. The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: Geography from Space
   
   http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/ceps/gaw/gaweek.htm
   The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum participates each year in Geography Awareness Week by posting a quiz about geography from space using satellite images of famous places on Earth. Connect to the web page to find the quiz for this year, as well as quizzes from past years.
   
   
4. Make a Mercator Projection
   
   http://interactive2.usgs.gov/learningweb/textonly/teachers/exploremaps_lesson2_1.htm
   This activity from the U.S. Geological Survey gives step-by-step directions for students to construct a Mercator map projection, one of the easiest to construct. After students construct the map, you might want to discuss with them the pros and cons for using this map projection.
   
   

Classroom Resources from the ENC Collection

1. Maps and mapping: geography facts and experiments
   Date: 1993 Grade(s): 3 - 6 Cost: $7.95 ENC#: 001129
   This book clearly describes all facets of maps and mapmaking for young cartographers. It includes many simple activities that illustrate such difficult concepts as scale, contour lines, and map projections.
   (For more details see ENC Record)
   
   
   
2. Exploring planet Earth
   Date: 1997 Grade(s): 6 - 9 Cost: $8.97 - $124.97 ENC#: 008871
   This physical geography/Earth science middle school textbook also covers mapmaking and map reading. Beyond the student and teacher's editions, there are a variety of supplementary materials including activities, a lab manual, a videodisc, and audiotapes.
   (For more details see ENC Record)
   
   
   
3. Africa
   Date: 1999 Grade(s): 4 - 6 Cost: $18.95 ENC#: 015001
   What do you think of when you read the word map? A road map? A map of the states? Maps can display many types of information, and this book nicely illustrates the many types of maps that students can use to learn about the regions of the world. There are maps showing the natural features of the continent, political maps of countries, and maps of transportation routes and cities, with accompanying activities. This book is part of a series that also provides in-depth views of Asia (ENC# 015002), Europe and the Middle East (ENC# 015003), and North America (ENC# 015004).
   (For more details see ENC Record)
   
   
   

Teacher Resources from the ENC Collection

1. Elemental geosystems
   Date: 1998 Grade(s): 12 - Post-Sec. Cost: $46.50 ENC#: 015364
   This is a basic physical geography textbook with a good chapter on ecosystems and biomes. There are many excellent maps and illustrations of Earth's processes that will help teachers improve their understanding and their students' grasp of such concepts as the hydrologic cycle, orographic precipitation, slope mechanics, and many more.
   (For more details see ENC Record)
   
   
   
2. Exploring sustainable communities: comprehensive coursework on the global environment
   Featured in ENC Focus  
   Date: 1997 Grade(s): 9 - 12 Cost: $9.95 ENC#: 011146
   This book of readings, activities, and resources could be used by teachers in grades other than 9-12 as background for developing lessons on environmental issues. The readings and handouts may be too advanced for K-8 students, but the excellent list of resources and the suggested activities can be helpful to the teacher who wants students to consider problems facing urban areas such as sprawl, transportation, water, air pollution, and housing.
   (For more details see ENC Record)
   
   
   

Search Strategies

Find more materials by searching Curriculum Resources on ENC Online using these terms: Conservation, Environment, Geography, Map skills, or Maps.

Connections to Standards

Realizing that there are many ways to use this Classroom Calendar entry, we chose these standards because they relate to the entry, in full or in part. If you want to explore the standards further, please use the link(s) provided.

Connections to NSES
Content Standard A: Science as Inquiry: Understanding about inquiry (K-4)
Content Standard A: Science as Inquiry: Understanding about inquiry (5-8)
Content Standard A: Science as Inquiry: Understanding about inquiry (9-12)
Content Standard A: Science as Inquiry: Abilities necessary to do inquiry (K-4)
Content Standard A: Science as Inquiry: Abilities necessary to do inquiry (5-8)
Content Standard A: Science as Inquiry: Abilities necessary to do inquiry (9-12)
Content Standard E: Science and Technology: Understanding about science and technology (9-12)
Content Standard E: Science and Technology: Abilities of technological design (5-8)
Content Standard E: Science and Technology: Abilities of technological design (9-12)
Content Standard E: Science and Technology: Understanding about science and technology (5-8)
Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives: Science and technology in local, national, and global challenges (9-12)
Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives: Natural resources (9-12)
Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives: Environmental quality (9-12)
Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives: Natural and human-induced hazards (9-12)
Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives: Populations, resources, and environments (5-8)
Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives: Natural hazards (5-8)
Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives: Population growth (9-12)