How many ways can you incorporate geography in the classroom?

Teaching geography is essential because without geography, students would only know the culture and landscape of the United States. Students would not know that there are so many places to discover on this Earth. The students need to experience other parts of the world and learn how everyone lives different lifestyles, but in the end we are all human. Through the 103 ways to teach geography PowerPoint, I have come across so many creative and technologically advanced ways to explore the world with students. I will use the PowerPoint in my future to try more than just my favorites.

The first idea that I chose to use to incorporate geography in the classroom was number nine, sending a postcard. I love how every student and all of the teachers participate in this activity! The more people involved in sending postcards allows for more discoveries of countries and cities as well as a larger comparison of numbers. When I say a larger comparison of numbers, I am talking about the class figuring out how many total miles traveled, the average distanced traveled in miles, and more. I find visuals to be extremely helpful in the classroom, especially when learning about areas around the world. The student pinning his or her location on the map and connecting it with a string to his or her postcard is necessary. When the students write the postcards, they will not know the area they are exploring until they see it on a world map. The postcard provides a close up view of the location so the students do get to see the landscape of the area as well. After every student and teacher has pinned their location and connected it to the postcard, the students can engage in analysis and research as a class. I would create groups and have each group be responsible for answering one question. Some questions include: How many different countries were traveled? How many different cities were traveled? How many different continents did we go to? What country was the furthest distance from our location? What country was the furthest distance from our location? This is an example of the information discovered through these questions by one elementary class who participated in this activity. The students are to find more information about the country or continent that is the answer to their question. If the answer was a number, the students are to pick any location and discover more about it. They should be exploring the culture or maybe even how the government is set-up. The students would then present their findings to their classmates. This activity also incorporates students learning how to write postcards to pen pals. Elementary students can learn the format of writing a short letter to someone. The students can learn what type of information to include in their writing in order to communicate with someone to learn more about the country and that individual's lifestyle.

As a teacher, I would leave one wall open for this activity. When creating the A-Z wall, I would make my selection include places from all over the world to show students a large variety of locations explored. I also would include both countries, capitals, cities, and even towns. If all of the locations are in the United States or other large countries the students know about, then they will find the wall to be boring and will not be expanding their knowledge. As this slide shows, including geographers, maps of the area discovered, quotes from writers in the area, and images shows the students to be creative in their findings. I want the students to be curious, explore, and learn from this endeavor. An example for letter Z would be the city of Zurich in Switzerland. I would include one of the two pictures below to represent this city.

I think this activity would require help from a parent or guardian third grade or below. I think doing this independently is for fourth graders to sixth graders. Since the students are in elementary school, I will assign one letter to each student in the class. If there is more than twenty-six students, I will assign different letters to two people. I will give the students a week to find a location, geographer, etc. After providing feedback, I think that this could be an ongoing activity. The students complete their assigned letter and then they will do this activity voluntarily in the future. This is a way for students to explore the globe themselves as well as learn from what others have discovered.

Describing photos is another way to initiate a new topic. I think this activity would work best if the students were assigned partners and not working with their friends. This limits any sort of fooling around or laughing from taking place. I like this idea because it is enjoyable for the students to be able to interact with one another and figure out the new topic of study based on how well they listen to their peers. If the students do not know what the topic is through the picture, they can use their prior knowledge to brainstorm what they think the picture might have to do with, with their partner. I would use describing photos at the end of a unit too. When using it at this point, I can give more specific scenes to see if the students know the individual events that occurred. The student giving the clues can use more in depth clues from what was learned in his/her notes.

If I used this with my fifth grades students during fieldwork, maybe I would have given them a picture of the soldiers fighting at the battle of Bunker Hill during the American Revolution. The student giving the clues could have included the year the battle was fought, the side that won the battle, etc. Describing photos allows the students to be introduced to or review material in an interactive way.

From what I have observed as well as through my own experience, it is very hard to get elementary students to quiet down at the start of a lesson. The teacher will tell them to put their belongings away and take out their social studies books. This process takes at least five minutes with the students talking, not moving, and not following directions. I think this warm-up activity should be used often in classrooms to make a lesson begin in a productive way. The teacher should explain the procedure to the students in the beginning of the year of what to do when they see a warm-up map on their desk. The students are to come in the classroom quietly, grab their social studies materials, sit down and independently complete the task. The students are timed and only given three minutes. The students know that if they have to do as told and cannot fool around in order to finish in time. If the students were to get used to this, the teacher would have the students attention quickly and they eventually master knowing where every country is located around the world. Each week I would keep the countries chosen the same until most students master them. Eventually I would start to include new countries, but leave the ones that students are still struggling with. The ones that are to be put on the map again are the ones that most students did not get correct. If there are students that keep getting all of them correct and students who only get one or two correct, I will begin making different versions based on abilities. I do not want the more advanced students getting bored and the less advanced students getting discouraged. This three minute warm-up activity will be having students feeling both smart and accomplished knowing all of the countries on the globe.



Sending and receiving postcards links back to idea number nine. The students wrote postcards and linked the postcards to their destination on the map through a string and a pin. In this case, the students are using a website called postcrossing to receive addresses to different countries around the world. This website is amazing in having students actually send and receive real postcards! The students can send a postcard to any part of the world that they would like one back from. As the teacher, I would provide students with New York, USA post cards. I would also mail out the postcards for the students and keep track of who sent a postcard to which country. Similar to idea number nine, the students can identify and point out the location they would like to or are sending a postcard to on a map. On the website, there is a live stream showing which countries around the globe postcards are being sent to and where they are being received from.

Communication across the world is so important in order for people to learn about and experience other cultures. This is an excellent experience for students because they are connecting with a specific country of their choice and will always have the evidence with them of doing so. Looking at the opposite perspective, the students are having people in other countries learn about the United States as well.

~ Christine Brown