Your Name: Steven Boone

Timeframe / Dates of Initiative: 7 Sessions

Short Description of Initiative (limit one paragraph):

This course is designed for 6th-8th graders. It will introduce students to the concept of geography and its influences. These 7 lessons
task students with identifying geography in all its form and think critically about how geography affects their lives as well as the lives of others
around the world. This is done by studying each of geography’s five themes (Location, Place, Region, movement, and human-environment
interaction). Students will learn how we are all connected and began to recognize the many geographical aspects that define mankind by
applying the five themes of geography. The topics covered in this course will help students develop a global perspective and global
understanding.

There are a number of overarching objectives that are applicable to each week. They are:

The students will reflect on the influences of geography.

The students will develop map skills.

The students will identify and apply the five themes of geography.

The students will demonstrate their understanding of the five themes of geography.

The students will be able to evaluate the benefits of the the themes of geography.

Session Objectives Content or Resources Needed Activities / Assessments

Number (List 3-6 per session.) (Describe or link at least one specific (For each activity, include the name,
and resource for each session.) description, and whether it is whole group,
Topics / individual, or team. Also, identify
Themes assessments, synchronous activities, and
any Web 2.0 tools used)
Session 0: Students will introduce themselves and
begin to reflect on their relationship to
geography.
http://popplet.com/ Each student will respond to the following
prompt on popplet.
Write your name. Then your favorite movie,
book, or song and how could geography have
influenced this?

Session 1: Students will be able to define geography. Reading Reading: Students will read a brief overview
Defining & https://www.nationalgeographic.org/educa of geography by National Geographic.
Identifying Students will be able to recognize the tion/what-is-geography/ Followed by some back information about
Geography different forms of geography. geography by the Kids World Travel Guide.
https://www.kids-world-travel- Finally, they will watch an introduction video
Students will establish key terms related guide.com/geography-for-kids.html about geography.
to geography.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVH1R Reflecting: Students will create their own
6v3GCY reflective journals using Google Slides. After
their title slide, they will make an additional
Reflective slide and write their own definition of
Reflective Journal geography and insert an image that they
believe best reflects their definition
Displaying Reflected journals will be shared with the
http://www.wordle.net/ teacher to be monitored and graded.

Doing Displaying: Students will create a word

https://zoom.us/ cloud using Wordle based on various
definitions found on the web. They will also
be asked to think about why certain words
appear more frequently.

Doing: In a synchronous class on zoom led by

the teacher, the students will share either
their definition of geography or their word
cloud. Students that share the word cloud will
need to explain why they think certain words
appeared more frequently. Finally, the class

Session 2:
Geography The students will be able to define the
Theme: Location geographical theme of location.
The students will be able to differentiate
between absolute location and relative
location.
The students will be able to apply absolute
and relative location to real world cities.
will create a definition for geography
together.
Reading Reading: Students will read the first two
Geography Alive Reading paragraphs from the reading in Geography
https://www.geolounge.com/absolute- Alive Reading. Students will then read from a
relative-location/ webpage by Geolounge about the two types
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyrby of location. Finally, students will watch a
OPYlfU video about the the differences between
absolute location and relative location.
Reflecting
https://canvas.instructure.com/login/canva Reflecting: Students will post to the
s discussion board on Canvas (LMS) based on
the following prompts. (Initial responses will
Displaying be due at 5pm)
https://www.canva.com/create/cards/invit ● List two examples of each type of
ation-cards/ location.
● Explain the benefits of each type of
Doing location.
https://www.google.com/maps
Students will respond to two classmates’
Classwide Google Spreadsheet posts by 9pm.
Displaying: The students will create a fake
birthday party invitation that uses both forms
of location. Invitations will be inserted into a
classwide Google Slides presentation.
Doing: On a classwide Google Sheet students
will choose any city in the world and type it
in to the spread. Once on the first column and
once on the first row. They will also need to
type the absolute location (coordinates) of
their city rounding to the nearest hundredth
decimal. Students can not choose the same
city as their classmates. Cities and their

Session 3: The students will be able to define the
Geography geographical theme of place.
Theme: Place
The students will be able to differentiate
between location and place.
The students will be able to identify
physical and human characteristics of a
place.
Session 4: The students will be able to define the
Geography geographical theme of region.
Theme: Region
The students will be able to determine the
benefits of dividing areas into regions.
The student will be able to analyze a map
and determine specific regions’
characteristics.
coordinates must be entered by 5pm. Next
students will look at the cities on spreadsheet
and type in the relative location of those
cities underneath each city.
Reading Reading: Students will read the webpage by
http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/articl Social Studies for Kids and study notes by
es/geography/whatsaplace1.htm Tutor 2u.
https://www.tutor2u.net/geography/refere Reflecting: Students will write two
nce/introduction-to-concept-of-place responses in their reflective journal. The two
prompts are as followed.
Displaying ● How are place and location different?
Postcard Slides ● Write an updated definition of
geography and include a new image.
Doing
https://spark.adobe.com/make/card- Displaying: Students will view the collection
maker/postcards/ of postcards in the Postcard Slides provided
by the teacher and think about how they
illustrate the physical and human
characteristics of a place.
Doing: Students will create their own
postcard using adobe spark and share it with
the class. They will need to clearly identify
the place and include at least five
characteristic of the place .
Reading Reading: Students will read What is a Region
https://www.worldatlas.com/what-is-a- from Worldatlas.com. Followed by a viewing
region.html of the flocabulary music video What is a
Region.
https://www.flocabulary.com/unit/what-
is-a-region/ Reflecting: Students will post to the
discussion board on Canvas (LMS) based on
Reflecting the following prompts. (Initial responses will
https://canvas.instructure.com/login/canva be due at 5pm)
 s ● How is dividing areas of the world
useful?
Displaying ● Are there downsides to dividing areas
https://disneyland.disney.go.com/map/#/ into regions?
m=disneyland
Students will respond to two classmates’
posts by 9pm.

Displaying: Students will analyze the

Disneyland map and identify the defining
characteristics of each park area/region.
Characteristic do not need to be shared with
the teacher.

Doing: Students will be assigned groups and

a region in the world. Together they must
create a Google Slides presentation of the
unifying characteristics of that region. After
they have completed they has completed the
presentation they share a link to the class
through a classwide Google Doc.

Session 5: The students will be able to define the Reading/Viewing Reading/Viewing:

Geography geographical theme of movement.
Theme:
Movement The students will hypothesize mankind’s
purpose for movement.
The students will be able to explain how
movement affects their food.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1h-
XUu2SvY
https://newsela.com/read/lib-
globalization/id/34864/
Reflecting
Reflective Journal
Displaying
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/1
1/watch-125000-years-of-human-
Students with watch the video Theme of
Movement by Tracie Weisz on Youtube. Then
they will read the Newsela article about
Globalization.
Reflecting: Students will write in their
reflective journal to the following prompt.
● Why do you think people choose to
migrate around the world?
Displaying: Students will view the video of
migration and think about the people, things,

Session 6: The students will be able to define the
Geography geographical theme of human-
Theme: Human- environment interaction.
Environment
Interaction The students will be able to identify
various forms of human environment
interaction.
The students will be able to illustrate the
benefits and dangers of human-
environment interaction.
migration-in-1-minute and ideas that have traveled the globe in the
past 120,000 years. They will submit a list to
Doing the teacher of the ten most important people,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ar things, or ideas that have moved around the
ticle-3643363/How-far-food-travelled- world.
Interactive-map-shows-world-s-food-
comes-from.html Doing: Students will look up the ingredients
of their favorite food and identify where
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_food_ those ingredient originated, using the
origins interactive map and wikipedia. Once students
have found their ingredients’ origins they will
https://flipgrid.com/ share their finding with the class using
flipgrid. They will also explain if and how
globalization impacted their favorite food.
Reading Reading: Students will read the two web
https://helpsavenature.com/human- pages from Help Save Nature and
environment-interaction-meaning-examples Reference.com.
https://www.reference.com/science/huma Reflecting: Students will watch The Lorax
n-environment-interaction- using videonot.es and make notes of every
8783e2b596fcb835 example of human-environment interaction
Reflecting they see in the movie. They will share their
http://www.videonot.es/ notes with the teacher
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V06Z Displaying: Students will use Padlet to share
OQuo0k as many specific examples of human-
environment interaction as they can think of.
Displaying
https://padlet.com/steven_boone/4tsfce9lr Doing: Students will create a comic strip of a
k1t scenario involving the benefits and dangers
of human-environment interaction using
Doing Pixton and share the link to the comic with
https://www.pixton.com/ the class through the discussion board by
5pm. Students will view each others comic
strips and provide feedback to three

Session 7: The students will be able to evaluate the
Geography’s impact of geography on their own life
Influence
The students will be able to apply and
illustrate the five themes of geography to
their own life.
The students will be able to assess their
understanding of geography’s influence on
a global scale.
Add or remove rows to the table above as needed. Add columns above if desired, as well.
Use this space to keep track of additional possible resources and/or content delivery methods you might consider using in your e-learning
initiative.
classmates by 9pm.
Reading Reading: Students will read the blog post by
http://www.urbanistdispatch.com/2220/1 Urbanist Dispatch about how geography is
0-ways-geography-has-everything-to-do- used everyday.
with-your-everyday-life/
Reflecting: Students will write in their
Reflecting reflective journal to the following prompts.
Reflective Journal ● Which of the 5 themes has had the
greatest impact on your life and why?
● Write a definitive definition of
Displaying geography.
https://www140.lunapic.com/editor/
Displaying: Students will make a sensory
Doing graphic organizer of themselves using
https://edpuzzle.com/media/5b5a7efcd74f LunaPic and relate it to the the geography
ed40b1e3860f around you. For example, if someone lived at
the beach they might hear the waves. Sensory
https://edpuzzle.com/media/5b5a801bd72 graphic organizers will be shared with the
d7a40a5615fba teacher.
Doing: Students will choose between two
videos to watch and answer the question at
the end using Edpuzzle. For the video
students are asked: How does geography
influence the creation of a pencil? For the
Sudan video students are asked:
How does geography influence the people of
Sudan?
Session 1
https://edpuzzle.com/assignments/5b55e68b239a4440834aeed1/watch

I decided not to use this in the introduction of geography because there was already a lot going on in the lesson.

Session 2
http://www.abcya.com/latitude_and_longitude_practice.htm
https://online.seterra.com/en/vgp/3124
https://www.mrnussbaum.com/international-pizza-delivery-2.html

This would have been fun coordinate (absolute location) practice for the student, but again there was enough already in the lesson. It would make good
enrichment.

Session 4
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/region/
http://mocomi.com/what-is-a-region/

These were just some additional readings. The Mocomi reading is interactive, but it doesn’t say anything more than the reading I ended up choosing for the
lesson.

Session 5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC83NA5tAGE

This would be a fun video to use in order to get the kids thinking about the movement of ideas. It just didn’t seem to fit anywhere in the lesson.