Page 161 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

CHAPTER 6 How Can I Teach Geography and Anthropology Powerfully? 133
values and ideals as they build neighborhoods, parks, shopping centers, and the like; examine, interpret and analyze physical and cultural patterns and their interactions, such as land use, settlement patterns, cultural transmission of customs and ideas and ecosystem changes; describe ways that historical events have been influenced by, and have influenced, physical and human geographic factors in local, regional, national, and global settings; propose, compare, and evaluate alternative uses of land and resources in communities, regions, nations, and the world.
A recommended activity that can be done even with kindergarten children is to rep- resent a highway linking two towns (using a strip of paper extending along the classroom floor or just drawing it on the board) and engage students in questions about people’s experiences as they drive (eliciting such responses as getting hungry or needing gas). This leads to discussion of businesses that might develop along the highway, and indivi- duals or groups within the class might be appointed to take the roles of a restaurant owner or a gas station owner, for example. Subsequent discussion would focus on where these businesses should be located, their specific nature (e.g., fast food or more upscale restaurants), where these business owners would like to live (near their busi- nesses on the highway or in the towns), where schools or banks are likely to locate, and so on. This activity could be limited to discussion within a single lesson or extended to include construction projects, role play, related writing assignments, and other elabora- tions that would continue for a week or more. The main point would be to develop stu- dents’ understandings about the relationships between people’s needs and wants and the locations of homes, businesses, and other features of the built environment that enable people to provide for their needs and wants. Other activities include having students develop birds’ eye views (i.e., maps) of their bedrooms or other rooms in their homes, the school, or the neighborhood and locating on the globe the place where the ancestors (or in some cases, the immediate families) of the students lived prior to immigrating to America.
Using the Five Themes in Your Teaching
The National Council for Geographic Education makes available at reasonable prices both basic geographical standards and guidelines statements and related publications on standards-based curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Up-to-date information about these publications can be found at the Council’s website. Although we find the NCSS theme, People, Places, and Environments and National Geography Standards’ list of basic skills and standards helpful, we believe that the five fundamental themes will pro- vide the best guidance to teachers as they plan lessons and activities. These themes are very powerful ideas that anchor the geographic perspective on the human condition. They should be brought to bear, not only on explicitly geographic activities, but on activ- ities relating to most of the social studies curriculum.
Consistent emphasis on these five themes helps to ensure that you teach all aspects of geography (not just details of location and place), and in ways that lead students through levels of abstraction from the simple to the complex. Note, however, that the themes are not meant to be used as unit topics and taught one after another. Instead, they are meant to be organizers of the content taught about unit topics such as states, nations, or regions. Good teaching of most geographic topics requires consideration of several, if not all five, of the themes, with attention to their relationships.
In this regard, elementary social studies texts leave much to be desired. Texts for the primary grades tend to emphasize basic geographical concepts and skills, such as the globe, the earth’s rotation, daily and seasonal cycles, the cardinal directions, understand- ing of maps as two-dimensional representations of “bird’s eye” views of sections of the earth, and experiences with different kinds of maps. Some of them are quite good at
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