Thursday, October 1, 2015

Geography, Day 7 - Class Recap


Today's map quiz was on Europe. In 2013, I took a two month trip to Europe and traveled by plane, train, and bus all around. Here's a collage of photos from each stop of the trip.

Hi everyone,

We are getting close to the end of the Geography unit! Thank you for your patience and understanding that geography is really important! Here's what happened today:

Learning Targets:
Behavior LT 2: I can self-direct my learning.
Knowledge LT 6: I can demonstrate an understanding of the characteristics of locations and regions.
Knowledge LT 7: I can demonstrate the ability to use geographic tools.

Soundtrack: "Trans Europe Express" by Kraftwerk. Selected for today because it was the Europe quiz in class, naturally. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 10/1/15:
News Brief – Jagrit
Europe Map Quiz
Geographic Literacy
Atlas/Map Work

Homework: Read the blog. Finish Africa map (colored and labeled) for the quiz next class. Keep studying for the upcoming states quiz. Next news brief: Aaron.

News Brief: Jagrit had the news brief today and selected this story to talk about: CNN.com - 2 dead, hundreds injured after Typhoon Dujuan slams Taiwan. We found Taiwan on the world map and I talked a little bit about the history there, especially with China. A very interesting situation in the world and a challenge to navigate, politically! We also talked about how typhoons are like hurricanes in the Pacific Ocean, and I mentioned that Hurricane Joaquin is currently hitting the Bahamas and might hit the East Coast soon. Thanks, Jagrit! Aaron was drawn as the next person up.

We also watched the one minute BBC World News update. Here's the link to see the latest one minute update, at any time of day (it will probably be different from what we watched in class):


I asked about the weekend and if anyone had any plans, before moving on.

Europe Map Quiz: The fourth map quiz out of the six! Remember that your top three scores will be turned in for your grade for the geography targets. We corrected the quiz in class and then I entered the scores in the gradebook. You will get them back to keep in your binder next class.

Geographic Literacy: I know that class has been a little repetitive lately, with quizzes and work time, I wanted to show again why it is important that we are learning about geography. So, I played this clip:


Yikes, to say the least! "Name a country in South America." "Uh... Africa?"

The problem is that this is not uncommon. To back up my point that we really need to know our geography as a society, I showed this article about the results of a 2006 National Geographic study:


Some of the statistics on there (granted, almost a decade old, but I would be willing to bet the numbers have not changed that much) are really frightening, about how little Americans the age of the students in our class know about geography. Less than 20% of young Americans even OWN a world map, which is a reason why I really care that you do! With that in mind, we moved on to continuing to label and prepare for the next map quiz.

Atlas/Map Work: The last part of class was dedicated to labeling and coloring the Africa section of the map packet, in order to be able to use it on the upcoming quiz next class. For checking the blog, here's a question from the quiz: This mountainous central African country is located between Uganda and Burundi. If you are missing your map packet and know you need to have it done, please print out another and have it ready to go for next class:

Google Drive - World Maps Packet

Also, here's the Five Themes of Geography Atlas activity to continue working on (which mostly has to be in class with the atlases here):

Have a great weekend, everyone! See you next week. :-)

2 comments:

  1. Homework is officially done this is really great homework I like doing this as homework! Thanks for making us do this. This is really fun

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks so much for doing it, Naki! I'm glad you like it! It's nice for me to be able to write, too.

      Delete

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