East Detroit Public Schools
Lesson Design

Author: Annette Theiss
Subject: Maps
Grade: 2-5
Course: Social Studies
Title: Learning About Maps

Length of Unit: Approximately 8-10 class periods
Materials Needed:
Power Macintosh G3 computer
color printer
T. V. monitor (wall-mounted)
overhead projector
Neighborhood Map Machine (software by Tom Snyder)
transparency
digital camera
Communities and Their Needs (Silver Burdett & Ginn; c.1988)
Follow the Drinking Gourd (or any map-related book)

Standards-Based Outcomes (MDE):

English Language Arts:

Meaning and Communication

Content Standard 3: All students will focus on meaning and communication as they listen, speak, view, read, and write in personal, social, occupational, and civic contexts

5. Employ strategies to construct meaning while reading, listening to, viewing, or creating texts. Examples include retelling, predicting, generating questions, examining picture cues, discussing with peers, using context clues, and creating mental pictures.

6. Determine the meaning of unfamiliar words and concepts in oral, visual, and written texts by using a variety of resources, such as prior knowledge, context, other people, dictionaries, pictures, and electronic sources.

Depth of Understanding

Content Standard 9: All students will demonstrate understanding of the complexity of enduring issues and recurring problems by making connections and generating themes within and across texts.

1. Explore and reflect on universal themes and substantive issues from oral, visual, and written texts. Examples include new friendships and life in the neighborhood.

2. Identify and categorize key ideas, concepts, and perspectives found in texts.

Ideas in Action

Content Standard 10: All students will apply knowledge, ideas, and issues drawn from texts to their lives and the lives of others.

1. Make connections between key ideas in literature and other texts and their own lives.

2. Demonstrate their developing literacy by using text to enhance their daily lives. Examples include reading with a parent, discussing a favorite text, writing to a friend or relative about an experience, and creating a visual representation of an important idea.

Social Studies:

II. Geographic Perspective

Content Standard II, 4: All students will describe and compare characteristics of ecosystems, states, regions, countries, major world regions, and patterns and explain the processes that created them. (Regions, Patterns, and Processes)

1. Identify regions in their immediate environment and describe their characteristics and boundaries.

V. Inquiry

Content Standard V, 1: All students will acquire information from books, maps, newspapers, data sets, and other sources, organize and present the information in maps, graphs, charts, and timelines, interpret the meaning and significance of information, and use a variety of electronic technologies to assist in accessing and managing information. (Information Processing)

1. Locate information using people, books, audio/video recordings, photos, simple maps, graphs and tables.

2. Acquire information from observation of the local environment.

3. Organize information to make and interpret simple maps of their local surroundings and simple graphs and tables of social data drawn from their experience.

Mathematics:

II. Geometry and Measurement

Content Standard II, 2: Students identify locations of objects, identify location relative to other objects, and describe the effects of transformations (e.g., sliding, flipping, turning, enlarging, reducing) on an object. (Position)

1. Locate and describe objects in terms of their position, including front, back, inside, outside, right, left, over, under, next to, between and locations on the number line, on a coordinate graph, and on a map.

2. Locate and describe objects in terms of their orientation, direction and relative position, including up, down, front, back, N- S- E- W, flipped, turned, translated; recognize symmetrical objects and identify their lines of symmetry.

5. Use concepts of position, direction and orientation to describe the physical world and to solve problems.

Prior Knowledge:

Students need to be familiar with the physical set up of the school building. Students need to know how to use the software program Neighborhood Map Machine. Students need to be familiar with their Social Studies textbook.

Cue Set:

Read Follow the Drinking Gourd or other map-related book. Discuss how and why maps are used today in our lives. Introduce the software program Neighborhood Map Machine, showing students how to navigate through the program. The students will use the “mystery” menu choice in the program, thus allowing the students to learn N- S- E-W- NE- NW- SE- SW- directions on a map.

Best Shot Instruction:

• Using the Social Studies textbook, the teacher will provide a guided discussion of maps.
• Students will take a “field trip” with the teacher through the school. This “trip” provides an observation of the school's physical layout. The teacher will conclude by returning to the classroom and leading a discussion of what was seen on their tour of the building.
• Students will use paper and pencils to draw a diagram of what they saw on their tour.
• Students will continue to use Neighborhood Map Machine to reinforce their map skills.
• The teacher and students will create an overhead transparency of a map of the school, highlighting and discussing symbols to be used on students’ maps.
• Students will bring the maps to the computer lab where they will create electronic maps using the software program Neighborhood Map Machine. Several sessions in the computer lab will be needed to complete the project.
• The teacher will monitor and provide help where needed to complete the map project in the lab.
• A digital camera will be used on another tour of the school to take a picture of each room in the building. These pictures will be inserted into the maps created on the computers.
• A representative student map will be printed in poster size and displayed outside of the students’ classroom. The hall bulletin board will encourage other students to locate their classroom and showcase the accomplishment of the class.
• The representative map will be launched on the school's web site with pictures of preselected rooms, such as the school office, gym, media center, computer lab, etc.
• During a class discussion, the students will explore careers associated with maps such as: cartographer, land surveyor, sociologist, navigator, historian, anthropologist, geologist, explorer, etc.

Reteaching and Enrichment:

Teacher/student interaction will provide reteaching and enrichment opportunities. Encouragement and feedback from the teacher will lead students to self-assessment of the map project using the software program Neighborhood Map Machine. Discussion of careers associated with maps and mapmaking will be used for enrichment.

Review and Closure:

• Students will print maps they created using Neighborhood Map Machine. Discussion of printed maps and a review of related map vocabulary will provide students with closure for the lesson.
• Closure of the lesson will incorporate a discussion of careers related to maps and map making.

Assessment:

• Teacher observation and student self-assessment will be used to evaluate the lesson.
• The teacher will observe student interaction with the software Neighborhood Map Machine.
• Students will:
  - successfully complete maps of the school
  - recognize and interpret map symbols
  - understand that maps represent real places
  - gain a unique perspective of their school
  - identify and use cardinal and intermediate directions
  - follow directions
  - work cooperatively
• Listening skills, following directions, and map skills will be rated on this lesson.
  (An improvement in learning the concept of maps was noted at the conclusion of this lesson.)

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