TITLE: Five Themes of Geography and Current Events
AUTHOR: Russ T. Hutchins, Coffeyville, KS
GRADE LEVEL/SUBJECT: 4-12; geography, social science,
language arts
OVERVIEW: This lesson plan can be done daily or every other
day as determined by the instructor. It may be done one
time a week. the current events from the newspaper,
television, news magazines, and radio provide excellent
sources of teaching with the five themes of geography. This
will make the student use and hopefully read the newspaper
beside sports and cartoons. An excellent reinforcement of
the skills of latitude and longitude will be used and map
reading as well.
PURPOSE: The purpose is the students will use the five
themes of geography; 1) location, 2) place, 3) human
interaction and the environment, 4) movement and
communication, and 5) regions. The student will use any
media source - TV, radio, newspaper, magazines, etc. bu
using the five themes they will break down and analyze the
news event. The news event must be world news.
OBJECTIVES:
1. The student will find out how world events affect him.
2. The student will use latitude and longitude of the
city involved.
3. The student will use and reinforce his place geography
skills.
4. The student will use the five themes of geography.
5. The student will develop over a period of a school
term an awareness of how world events, geography, and
cultures go hand in hand.
RESOURCE/MATERIALS: We have found USA Today Newspaper and
excellent source, especially the first section and pages 3,
4, 5 and others for world news.
CNN and Headline News on TV are also well used sources.
Time and Newsweek magazines are popular with the students.
National Geographic mini articles in the front and back of
the journal are used as well such Geographicia.
** Some newspaper companies will let schools have a
discount price and will deliver daily the newspaper you
need. USA Today has been most helpful. Also CNN Classroom
can be taped and shown to class the following morning and
students like to use it.
ACTIVITIES AND PROCEDURES: The student will cut out of the
newspaper or take notes form a television or radio source
and place the article taped into a spiral notebook. They
will then number and date it. After reading the article
using SQRRR reading methods they will list the five themes
of Geography and find them from the news article. (see
attached example)
The student will then locate the city of the story with
exact latitude and longitude and write it down. They will
use an atlas or a globe.
The following day the student will share the
information with the class and show on a flat map or globe
where the city and various news events took place. The
credit will be worth 20 points per day per student. The
teacher will check each week to see if the student is doing
the notebook correctly.
TYING IT ALL TOGETHER: The students turn in the notebook at
the end of each nine week grading period for credit. The
teacher scores on the basis of following the directions,
five themes, world news, and neatness. Ten to 20 points per
article. Usually 40 x 10 = 400 points. The teacher can do
what they like. This can be done weekly one time a week if
desired.
As a culminating event a world map hand made of large
size 8 ft by 4 ft from plywood or other materials like
sheetrock can be used. The students will draw in and locate
all the countries that made the news plus mark with a pint
he story and area coming in the news again.
The news notebook can be done cooperatively and done by
groups of twos: one holding and keeping the notebook and
the other locating the news story or then taking turns.
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