Deija Collier

Hanna Watters
Jenna Berry

T37 Map-reader Lesson

Grade Level: ​10th Grade

Subject:​ Interdisciplinary US History and Geography and Earth Science
Duration of Lesson: ​4 Class Sessions
Content Standards:
ISTE Standards
Standard 3: Knowledge Constructor
3c Students curate information from digital resources using a variety of tools and
methods to create collections of artifacts that demonstrate meaningful connections or
conclusions.
3d Students build knowledge by actively exploring real-world issues and problems,
developing ideas and theories and pursuing answers and solutions.

National Geographic Education Standards

Standard 14: “Environmental modifications have economic, social, and political
implications for most of the world’s people. Therefore, the geographically informed
person must understand the reasons for and consequences of human modifications of
the environment in different parts of the world.”

High School Earth Science Standards

Earth’s Systems
HS-ESS2-2 Analyze geoscience data to make the claim that one change to Earth’s
surface can create feedbacks that cause changes to other Earth systems.
Human Sustainability
HS-ESS3-6 Use a computational representation to illustrate the relationships among
Earth systems and how those relationships are being modified due to human activity.

High School Social Studies Standards

6.1 Growth of an Industrial and Urban America
Explain the causes and consequences — both positive and negative — of the Industrial
Revolution and America’s growth from a predominantly agricultural, commercial, and
rural nation to a more industrial and urban nation between 1870 and 1930.
 6.1.1 Factors in the American Second Industrial Revolution – analyze the factors that
enabled the United States to become a major industrial power, including:
• the organizational revolution.
• the economic policies of government and industrial leaders.
• the advantages of physical geography.
• the increase in labor through immigration and migration.
• the growing importance of the automobile industry.
6.1.3 Urbanization – explain the causes and consequences of urbanization, including:
• the location and expansion of major urban centers and their link to industry and
trade.
• internal migration, including the Great Migration.
• the development of cities divided by race, ethnicity, and class, as well as the
resulting tensions among and within groups.
• different perspectives about the immigrant experience.
6.1.4 Growth and Change – explain the social, political, economic, and cultural shifts
taking place in the United States at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th
century, by:
• describing the developing systems of transportation (canals and railroads,
including the Transcontinental Railroad), and their impact on the economy and
society.
• describing governmental policies promoting economic development.
• evaluating the treatment of African Americans, including the rise of segregation
in the South as endorsed by the Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson,
and describing the response of African-Americans to this inequality.
• describing the policies toward Indigenous Peoples, including removal,
reservations, the Dawes Act of 1887, and the response of Indigenous Peoples to
these policies.

Prerequisite Skills: ​Students will have skills in map reading which include identifying physical
features and distinguishing between human and natural interactions with the environment.
Students will have research skills which include the ability to find primary sources that support
their research.

Technology Rationale: ​The USGS Topographical Map resource is not only adaptable for all age
groups, it provides maps that ground the students to the contemporary geography in order to
teach historical geography. This is done by projecting the historical maps over the satellite maps
the students can recognize. These map compilations make for an invaluable resource because of
how accessible it is. Going beyond this, the addition of maps and the way they are framed by this
resource is very interdisciplinary. This makes the resource good to use for multiple lesson plans
in different subject areas, furthering the students’ map literacy.

Teaching USGS Maps: ​Students will be given a brief tutorial on what functions the application
has, with special attention to the timeframe filter, elevation, and coordinates. After the quick
tutorial students will be prompted to use the application to answer questions about the geography
of their community. By having students use the maps to find answers they will be developing the
skills more than if they were just informed through direct instruction. Questions like the ones we
would use while teaching students will be used during the class presentation. Teaching these map
skills has a distinct focus on guided student inquiry, which will be difficult to model in our class.
 
PBL Activity:
INTRO:
Students will take a brief physical survey of their community. They will be told to focus on
what resources people in their community have access to. Exploration questions could
include:
● Where are grocery stores, libraries, schools, hospitals and government buildings
● Can people without cars access them easily by foot or public transit?
● What are the options for individuals without cars?
● Is how accessible these resources are determined by race, class, ability, or gender?
● What can young people do in the community?
● How many green spaces are there?
● Are there homeless people and how are they supported by the community?
● Has architecture been created to discourage the safety of homeless people?
There are more themes for students to explore, these are just some ideas. Students will record
their observations and be prompted to make historical connections to brainstorm and
hypothesize why the things they observed are the way that they are.

BUILD: Individually or in pairs, students must identify one geographic change in their
community that was conducted by humans during the Second Industrial Revolution
(1870-1930) and evaluate it historically. Exploration questions could include:
● Who benefited from this change, who was hurt?
● What environmental impact did this change have, was it positive or negative?
● Was this a change that was prompted on the federal, state, or community level?
Examples of changes could include the redirection of rivers or tributaries, deforestation,
orchards planted, freeways created, increase of residence areas, the creation or expansion of
large institutions, the creation of suburbs, schools, hospitals, or grocery stores closing or
opening, etc.
 CONNECT: Students will determine the connections between what they observed in their
communities during the survey and what they identified within the maps. As students explore
this relationship they will be making active connections to past and present and determining
how actions have impact. Beyond this, observations will be tied to classroom social studies
curriculum as students evaluate the historical and geographic context of the area they
identified.

SYNTHESIS: Students will be prompted to create an argument regarding their findings.

Here, they will explain what they observed and tie the observations to the historical context
and current situation in a cohesive manner. This will culminate into a two page paper which
will correspond to the students final grade on the project.

SYNTHESIS PAPER RUBRIC: ​Students will receive full points on this paper if they identify a
geographic change they noticed with complete citation of the map used to find the change. This
change must be connected to a present observation the student noticed on the community survey
and historical context that connects the students observations to what we've been learning about
in class. Points will be awarded for clear, cohesive, and creative arguments which incorporate the
historic, geographic, and survey observations the student made.