Geography teaching methods

[Kalixta]

I teach a semester long geography course for 6th graders and I'm thinking of changing my approach. We've been covering the continents individually, which seems to be the way most text and lesson books do it. I find this rather tedious, though, and I was thinking of studying the globe by climatic region. I would start with the the Arctic circle and work my way southward. Then they could compare, say, the tropical countries of South America with those of Africa and Asia, for instance.

Any thoughts on how/if this would work?

[Flipp]

I think it sounds fantastic!
And there's so much to tie together that way, weather, political history of a region... I love the idea.

[jsfowler]

Great idea! The more connections you make, the more likely they are to retain the knowledge. This also opens up all kinds of project ideas...do they do independent projects? How do you assess their knowledge?

[busbus]

I think that you have a good plan. The geography frameworks should fit right in - the five themes of geography. These themes are broad and are within the national geography standards.

Your plan and incorporating the geography frameworks with the standards should help your students to develop a geography perspective in a way that they can make connections. Using your technique, I am certain that you will be able to design many interesting and fun activities and projects for your students.

Check out the archives of Geography Awareness Week activities. You just might find some projects and lessons that tie into your idea.

Have fun. :)

[MsCoffeeLover]

Love your ideas on this one.

What also helps are around the world activities like cultures, holidays, etc. There is a Cinderella story for just about every culture out there, and that opens the doors for a lot. Another one of my groups did Christmas around the world. That was fun.

Of course, you can always take the food and drink approach. My love of coffee made for a nice Geography unit in so many ways.

I also did a post card project. Students had to draw pictures or cut out pictures that represent a specific geographical area. The pictures had to describe climate, landforms, wildlife, industry, etc. However, the students actually had to write a post card to a friend or relative discussing all of these things as well. I mailed them too!

It was really cute seeing a student put a picture of herself in the middle of wildlife of Kenya.

Geography rocks.

[Pike]

I like the post card idea,...

For a project, last year I had my students do journals. I called it "Journaling Around the World."

They would choose countries and pretend they were touring it and write about their experiences. They were expected to mention the weather (climate), people, language, and food. They were also expected "to visit" important places (history) & meet important people (current events), etc. They also mention stuff like airline and hotels they stayed at (all 5 stars of course!) Students of diplomats would mention meeting important leaders of the country.

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