This article provides an overview of the geography, characteristics, and life of the Arctic and Southern Oceans.
How do you get to school each day? Is it a well known or marked path? What would happen if they didn't know where they were going? Try to draw a map showing them the information they have just provided.
Engage middle school students in a meaningful study of the lives of students from across the globe through the use of contemporary nonfiction and fiction. Students create personal autobiographies, sequence story events, and prepare well-crafted summaries while learning to use higher-level comprehension strategies such as Question-Answer Relationships and the Bio-Cube. Additionally, students conduct a critical study of the NCSS Notable Tradebook Nasreen̍s Secret School: A True Story From Afghanistan by Jeanette Winter, comparing and contrasting their own lives to Nasreen̍s and expanding their geographical knowledge of the Middle East.
This animation adapted from NASA shows the orbital paths of spacecraft in NASA's Earth Observing Fleet that are a source of wide-scale, primary research about Earth.
This article provides geography lessons to teach elementary students about the polar regions. Literacy extensions are included for each lesson.
Place and Location are two of the five themes of geography and a natural starting point for a study of the Arctic and Antarctica. Location answers the question, "Where am I?" while the study of place asks, "What kind of a place is it?" and, "How does this place connect to my hometown?" This issue of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears examines how you can introduce the Arctic and Antarctica and use science, geography, literacy, and technology to help your students compare and contrast these two dramatically different areas as well as their own home. Get ready for an adventure as you and your students develop your polar sense of place!
Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears is an online professional development magazine for elementary teachers which focuses on preparing teachers to teach polar science concepts in an already congested curriculum by integrating inquiry-based science with literacy teaching. Such an integrated approach can increase students' science knowledge, academic language, reading comprehension, and written and oral discourse abilities.
This issue of the free online magazine, Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears, examines how elementary teachers can introduce the Arctic and Antarctica and use science, geography, literacy, and technology to help students compare and contrast these two dramatically different areas as well as their own home.
This video segment adapted from Northwest Indian College reveals how Native American life and knowledge is connected to natural cycles.
Beginning with examples from the polar regions, this article examines the question Why do we have seasons? Included are links to lesson plans, a list of childrenČs books, and suggested alignments with science, literacy, geography, and climate instruction in K-5 classrooms. The article appears in the free, online magazine Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears.
In this video adapted from Earth Island Institute, meet a high school student who educated her community about how a coal-burning power plant was contributing to asthma and other health problems there.
Students participate in a Creative Problem Solving Activity to get from Utah to the Atlantic Ocean.
This nonfiction article, written for elementary students, discusses the unique characteristics of the North and South poles. The student article is available as a text-only document, illustrated book, and electronic book. Related lesson plans are included for teacher use.
This Census Bureau page contains frequently updated stories in the form of short blog-style posts. Each story highlights a unique demographic topic and is supported by data and visuals. Use these as part of whole group instruction, or design small-group activities with America Counts to get students doing geography.
In this ZOOM video segment, cast member Francesco follows the paper trail to find out what happens to his recyclables. He visits a material recovery center and learns how paper is recycled and the number of trees that are saved as a result.
This interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service illustrates the variety of landforms and features created by volcanoes. Featured are calderas, craters, fumaroles and other geothermal features, igneous rocks, lava flows, lava tubes, and maars.
A short video that explains the movement of plate tectonics and how they can cause earthquakes.
This article points out that there is no one official definition for the Arctic. Then the author identifies definitions ranging from geography to climate to culture and more. Maps and other visuals illustrate the definitions. The author suggests that defining the Arctic can be an example for K-Grade 5 students of the nature and challenges of classification systems. The article appears in the free, online magazine Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears.
Enduring understanding: The physical geography of Utah influences where people live.Essential question:How do the physical features and landforms of Utah affect human settlement? This lesson will look at population concentrations in the State of Utah. Students will discuss the physical features that are part of various population centers and look for effects that those features may have on population.
From the site: "Since 2000, IOM has been producing world migration reports. The World Migration Report 2022, the eleventh in the world migration report series, has been produced to contribute to an increased understanding of migration throughout the world. This new edition presents key data and information on migration as well as thematic chapters on highly topical migration issues. This interactive represents only a small part of the Report.: