Lesson Plans:

• The Path of the Black Death
  ***New Lesson Plan from Chris Heider***  Students will be able to understand why the Bubonic/Pneumonic Plague was able to spread so quickly in Europe in 1347/8.
• Mapping Cultural Universals  Lesson Plan by Jenna Zemrak and Amber Gibbs This lesson is designed to illustrate possible relationships and correlations between language, nationality, and religion.
• A Puzzling Look at Our Ecosystem written by Addie Gann and Jessica Lynch. Students will illustrate the three components of the ecosystem in which they live and explain how these characteristics interact with one another. Students will also examine the spatial distribution of this ecosystem throughout the world.
• Development of cajun culture as a result of migration With this lesson students will understand how migration influences the development of culture. Given a map of North America, students will sketch the migration path that brought the Cajuns from Acadia to Louisiana.
• Vermicomposting A Vermicomposting Geographic Curriculum
• Dams Lesson Plan (NGS) Contemplate why—and how—people build dams, and explore the good and bad impacts a dam may have on a community.
• Habitats – A must see site for those interested in biomes, ecosystems, and habitats.
• Here Comes the Sun-A Solar Tutorial – on seasons and solar heating.

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Lewis and Clark:

Lewis & Clark: Lesson 1:  Resources.
Lewis & Clark: Lesson 2 : Journey of Discovery and Rivers.
Lewis & Clark: Lesson 3:  Ethnography of the Lewis & Clark Expedition
Lewis & Clark: Lesson 4:  Planning a Trip Along The Lewis & Clark Trail How to apply geography to interpret the present and plan the future.

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Lesson Plans:

Sunlight Hours and Effects on Human Activity Effect of Daylight Hours On Human Activity
Locate the Nashua River Valley
Mental Mapping: How to use mental maps to organize information about people, places, and environments in a spatial context. This is a culminating activity for A River Ran Wild. Mental mapping is an individual’s interpretation of a place. In this case the area will be the Nashua River.
What is the Value?  How to analyze the spatial organization of people, places, and environments on Earth’s surface.
Students will use information from the book, A River Ran Wild, by Lynne Cherry to formulate estimations of the distribution of people and wildlife in the Nashua River Valley over a period of 300 years. Students will display their information in the form of a graph.
Physical and Human Characteristics of Place : The physical and human characteristics of places.
By creating dioramas, students will increase their understanding of Indian life along the Nashua River in the early 1600’s
Local Area – What Is a Region?  The people create regions to interpret Earth’s complexity
The Connecticut River Valley is New Hampshire’s most extensive river region. Throughout history the river has influenced people’s lives and altered the development of the New England States. The basis of the lesson is readily adaptable to any river system – large or small, as the same aspects apply to all.
A River Runs Through Our Town: How culture and experience influence people’s perceptions of places and regions.
Students will interview local town residents asking them to describe the history, the use, and their memories of a river, brook, pond, lake, etc, common to the community. Students will interpret the information in the form of a drawing and a few descriptive sentences.
How Do I Know It’s A River?: The physical processes that shape the patterns of Earth’s surface.
Students will call upon previous lesson plans and personal knowledge to describe the characteristics of a river valley.
A River Ecosystem: The characteristics and spatial distribution of ecosystems on Earth’s surface. Students will create a mobile that portrays the various components of a river ecosystem.
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Lesson Plans:
Tools Make A Difference : The characteristics, distribution and complexity of Earth’s cultural mosaics.
- compare older and newer types and designs of tools
- recognize how did the change in tools affected life along the river
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Mill: The patterns and networks of economic interdependence on Earth’s surface.
Students will participate in a simulation of trade. Students will problem-solve solutions to situations caused by forces beyond their control.
Welcome to Paradise: The processes, patterns and functions of human settlements.
The students will create advertising posters that are intended to persuade others to join a settlement. The students must support their persuasive arguments with geographic arguments.
Shakers and Movers: How the forces of cooperation and conflict among people influence the division and control of Earth’s surface.
to see how an idea can develop – develop enthusiastic supporters to solve a problem – see how cooperation can “move mountains” – to understand how one person can make a difference
People Cause Pollution: How human actions modify physical environment.
to help students understand the effects of industry on
natural features
River and Woodland Communities: How physical systems affect human systems.
-to increase awareness of the differences in life style of people living along a river and in the woods
Clean Water Act: The changes that occur in the meaning, use, distribution, and importance of resources.
- politics influences life (good or bad) – how one person can make a difference
A Stinking Smelly Sewer: How to apply geography to interpret the past.
Students will create a timeline of events that occurred in the Nashua River Valley as presented in the book, A River Ran Wild
Fish Food for Thought: How to apply geography to interpret the present and plan for the future. Students will use information from the book, A River Ran Wild, by Lynne Cherry to develop ideas on ways to protect and preserve U.S. waters.

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Lesson Plans:

A Musical Trip Across New Hampshire: How to use maps and other geographic representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective.
Students will use maps and personal knowledge to determine the best route to a destination. Students will communicate these directions to others in the form of a song.
Making a Globe 1: How to use maps and other geographic representations, tools and technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial context.
- create a globe – locate and label these places: North Pole, South Pole, Equator, Prime Meridian and International Dateline.
Making a Globe 2
- to add land masses to the globe – to identify and label oceans – to identify the continents from a globe or map
On the Way Home: How to use mental maps to organize information about people, places, and environments in a spatial context.
- to create awareness of the numerous and varied physical and human features (human made) students pass along their route from school to home.
The Relative Location of Relatives: How to use mental maps and their representations as a way of organizing information about people, places, and environments in a spatial context.
Students will use personal knowledge or interviews with relatives in order to map the distribution of their family members within the town, state, country, or world.
Bird’s Eye View Map: How to analyze the spatial organization of people, places, and environments on Earth’s surfaces.
On a town map, locate the school. On a school map, locate the classroom. Display in the classroom. Suggest reading aloud: As the Crow Flies by Gail Hartman, Bradbury Press
Bird’s Eye View of the Classroom: How to analyze the spatial organization of people, places, environments on Earth’s surface.
- to create awareness of the simplicity of the classroom furniture when seen from above compared to eye level view.
Be a Geography Observor and Recorder: The physical and human characteristics of place.
- explore human and physical features in the school neighborhood.
Geography Walk: The physical and human characteristics of places.
to observe physical features around school and the school neighborhood.
A Capital Idea : Looks at the use of physical geography and location and how man utilizes these to his advantage. Students will write a description of the spatial organization of the former and present location of New Hampshire’s state capital examining the concepts of distance, direction, and location. Students will describe the influence of the physical environment and the human characteristics that determined the location of the capital over time.

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Lesson Plans:

Local Area – What Is a Region?: The people create regions to interpret Earth’s complexity.
-to describe physical characteristics of a River Valley – to identify the criteria by which the valley can be considered a region.
What Do They Think? :How culture and experience influence people’s perceptions of places and regions.
to recognize how different people perceive a place by examining their likes and dislikes.
Local Area – Do Perceptions Differ: How culture and experience influence people’s perceptions of places and regions.
- to realize what we think we see– is not always what is the reality – to observe what we see (We see, but do we really observe?) – to understand “individual perception”
King of the Mound: This lesson deals with water as an agent of change. Agents of change include, rain, snow, wind, glaciers, etc.
Local Area – Ecosystems: The characteristics and spatial distributions of ecosystems on Earth’s surface.
- to understand an ecosystem – to find ecosystems within the Connecticut River Valley – consider the change in the ecosystems over time (past and future)
The Elephant ate a Banana in the Tundra: This lesson uses a very common creative dramatics exercise with an ecosystems’ twist.
Students will utilize imagery in the plot development through creative action. Students will logically organize a sentence using who, what and where. Students will identify an animal, its actions and its habitat.
Where is Everybody?: To create awarness of human uses of school spaces
A River Mosaic: The characteristics, distribution, and complexity of Earth’s cultural mosaics.
- to recognize a culture – to understand that blending cultures creates a mosaic that greatly affects geography in both place and time – to see the effect of immigration on a particular area
Greetings, Earthling: This lesson focuses on language as a component of culture. Culture includes peoples belief systems, social relationships, their organizations and institutions, and material goods.
Couch Potatoes Around the World: Students will identify raw materials and manufacturing and processing needed to produce a consumer product.
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Lesson Plans:

Outlining Transportation: This lesson uses the geography theme of movement as way of teaching students outlining skills. Movement is the way people, products, and ideas travel. Students will write an outline using the appropriate format. Students will use their experiences and knowledge in order to organize the means by which people, products, and ideas travel.
The Building of the Transcontinental Railroad: This lesson may be used with a unit on Westward Expansion, transportation or Native Americans.
Students will trace the approximate route of the Transcontinental Railroad. Students will discuss human and physical obstacles to the Transcontinental Railroad.
A New, Capital Idea: This lesson could be used as an extension to the lesson titled: A Capital Idea. Students will create a pamphlet, which persuades others as to the location of a capital for a new country. The pamphlet should include reasons for the location of the capital by citing the importance of the location to physical and human features.
…..How Shall We Settle It: How the forces of cooperation and conflict among people influence the division and control of Earth’s surface. describe and compare the community over a series of decades – recognize the reason for rules or organization – to whom does the Earth belong?
Jack-I mean Cosmo-in-the-Box: This lesson is intended to introduce students to political units. Political units are regions designated by humans (e.g., precinct, township, metropolitan area, county, state, and nation).
Students will identify political units at different scales.
Local Area – Is the Land Connected to Us?: How human actions modify the physical environment.
-to describe human characteristics within the Connecticut River Valley – to identify the locality as a region by human characteristics – recognize ways in which people have used and modified the environment within the region
Don’t Water….Shed A Tear: Tributaries flow into other bodies of water. Watershed is the entire system of water flow and source.
- to demonstrate a tributary and a watershed – to demonstrate what happens when part of the watershed becomes polluted
Local Area – We Are Connected to the Land: How physical systems affect human systems. – to identify some of the resources provided by the river system – recognize how people conform to or are affected by the physical environment of the locality
Hazard Alert: Students will collect and organize data regarding the occurrence of natural hazards as they occur across the country. Students will collect and organize data regarding the occurrence of natural hazards as they occur across the country.
Go West Young Man: This lesson uses the geographic term immigration as a movement of living things from one country to another or one continent to another, whereas to emigrate is to move within a country. – to differentiate between immigrate and emigrate – to see how a human value of an earth resource affects the landscapes

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Lesson Plans:

Oh My Darling: This lesson shows historical fiction through song. It leads to a discussion on human interaction with the environment.
Through their interpretation of the folk song, Clementine, students will create a visual image, which includes geographic features, of an event in America’s past. Students will present this image to others, they may create models, draw, write a narrative, or present a skit. Students will discuss and predict the effects of mining on the human and physical features of the environment.
Digging Up Our Past: How to apply geography ( and history) to interpret the past. – to respect the past – to learn from cemeteries -to apply geography and history
Yesterday’sTrash: -To create awareness of what we throw away in our classroom and where it comes from
More Physical Education in 2002: How to apply geography to interpret the present and plan for the future.
Beam Me Up Scotty: This lesson was created using fictionalized data regarding the population and land use of a fictitious region on a fictitious planet in a fictitious universe.
Students will interpret population and land use data in order to predict future environmental problems.
As We See People: Particular characteristics are often associated with a defined group of people. -to explore and discover characteristics associated with groups of people in the local community, state, region, country, continent
Let’s Find a Region: – To begin recognizing small geographic areas within a larger area.
The Earth’s Landscape : The two physical processes that create the Earth’s surface are build up (up-heavels like mountains) and breakdown (erosion).
Erosion also builds up. Winds create dunes, water creates deltas, ice creates valleys, waves create spits and sandbars. – to become familiar with natural disaster vocabulary: earthquake, flood, tornado, typhoon, tidal waves, drought, volcanic flow, hurricane, lightning
The Weather and Recess:  To create an awareness of the weather and how it affects recess.
What is a Map: How to use maps and other geographic representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective.
to begin discussion about maps, what they can tell us, how we can use them

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