Geography, Day 8 - Class Recap

The Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, taken in July of 2014. Today, we had our Africa map quiz in class, which included Egypt!

Dear class,

Welcome back to a short week together! This week should close out the first big unit of the year, on Geography. Next class is our last map quiz, and then we will start moving on to Culture next week! 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: "Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)" by Shakira. Selected for today because a student in Period 5 requested it, and because it was the theme song for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, and today was the Africa quiz. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 10/5/15:
News Brief – Aaron
Africa Map Quiz
Latitude/Longitude
Atlas/Map Work

Homework: Read the blog. Finish Asia/Middle East maps (colored and labeled) for the quiz next class. Bring all of your other geography unit work/quizzes to be able to turn in. Keep studying for the upcoming states quiz. Next news brief: Catherine.

News Brief: Aaron had the news brief today and selected this story to talk about: CNN.com - North Korea releases NYU student. We found North Korea on our Asia map and talked a little bit about this story. I also told the story about my brief visit to North Korea for about 3 minutes at the DMZ, and showed some pictures. That was an interesting experience, to be sure! Thanks, Aaron! Catherine 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):

BBCNews.com - One-minute World News

I also checked in about the weekend with everyone to see how Homecoming and any other events of interest went, before moving on.

Africa Map Quiz: The second to last 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.

Latitude/Longitude: I wanted to make sure that we went over the concepts of latitude and longitude again, in identifying where places are in the world. With that, I passed out this worksheet having to do with Asia (which, not so coincidentally, students were labeling in class today):

Google Drive - Asia Latitude and Longitude Worksheet

I will collect these as part of the collection of evidence for the geography learning targets later in the week, along with your top three map quizzes, finished map packet, and Five Themes of Geography packet.

Atlas/Map Work: The last part of class was dedicated to labeling and coloring the Asia and Middle East sections of the map packet, in order to be able to use it on the last map quiz next class. For checking the blog, here's a question from the quiz: This island country—an archipelago made up of many atolls—is located south and west of India. 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

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

Google Drive - Five Themes of Geography Atlas Packet

I am looking forward to meeting your parents tomorrow night at Back To School Night! You can bet that the blog will feature heavily. Make sure to have your map packet completed, and as much of the Five Themes packet done as possible for next class!