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Classroom Idea: Grade Five through Eight
Exploration—Overcoming the Obstacles
Introduction:
This activity asks students to look at the National Geographic physical map to determine the geographic obstacles that expeditions to various parts of the earth might face. Students will practice their map-reading skills, deepen their understanding of topography and wind patterns, and be asked to think about the ways in which people have or might someday overcome these types of obstacles.
Time Required: Four to five hours
Materials Required: Handout
Subjects: Earth science, geography, history
National Geography Standards:
Standard 1: How to use maps and other geographic representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective
Standard 7: The physical processes that shape the patterns of Earth’s surface
Standard 15: How physical systems affect human systems
Standard 17: How to apply geography to interpret the past
Standard 18: How to apply geography to interpret the present and plan for the future
Procedure:
Ask students what types of obstacles they think they would face if they were asked to take a sea or land expedition to another part of the world. What geographic features might get in their way? Now ask them what types of obstacles they think they would have faced if they’d taken such a journey a hundred years ago. What about five hundred years ago?
Divide the class into small groups of about four students each. Tell them that they’re going to use the National Geographic physical map and several Web sites to help them think about the many geographic obstacles faced by explorers and to plan for an expedition of their own.
Ask your students to imagine what it would be like to make their way
into the interior of Australia,
from Europe to Greenland, or
from northern Africa to the Cape of Good Hope.
Have groups take turns looking at the National Geographic physical map and ask them to use section one of their handout to explain the potential obstacles that such expeditions would encounter.
Ask the groups to use section two of the handout to explain the ways in which the routes that they’ve examined have become more accessible. Would they be able to travel over this route more easily now? What technologies enable people to be more confident in these parts of the world?
Ask each group to go to one of the following featured expeditions at nationalgeographic.com:
Have students locate the expedition’s route on the physical map and describe the challenges that the explorers would face. Then have them visit the online feature to see how the expedition coped with these obstacles. Students should use section three of the handout for this part of the activity.
Ask the students whether they think there are many more unexplored areas of the Earth. Have them look at the map and notice that the ocean floor has been mapped, even though it hasn’t been explored nearly as much as the land. Yet few parts of the ocean have actually been visited by humans.
Tell the students to imagine that they’ve been appointed to lead expeditions to explore the ocean floor. In their groups, they will use the physical map and the Internet to study the topography of the ocean floor and gather information for the journey. They’ll have to predict the obstacles that they might face and explain how they will attempt to overcome them. Will this expedition be as demanding as expeditions and adventures on land and over the sea in the past? Will they face similar obstacles and difficulties?
Ask them to visit the following Web sites to find out about ocean exploration and to answer the questions in section four of the handout:
Also ask the groups to look at the ocean topography on the physical map to determine the ocean and region that they’d like to explore and the physical characteristics and obstacles in that region. Students might want to view the ocean maps on National Geographic’s Map Machine at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/maps.
Once they’ve gathered their information and answered the questions on section four of the handout, groups should compile their information into an expedition plan. The plan should be organized in the form of a poster that includes a route map and discusses potential obstacles, equipment to help overcome the obstacles, and the scientific inquiries that they plan to undertake while at the ocean floor. If there’s time, have each group present its poster to the class.
Finish the lesson with a class discussion of the ways in which the Earth’s topography presents obstacles and hazards for explorers and travelers and the ways in which people have attempted to overcome these obstacles. Can any geographic obstacle be overcome? If not, what obstacles are too massive for people to overcome? Should people even be trying to “beat nature” and attempt explorations that are extremely risky?
Handout
(You can highlight this text and paste it into your word processor.)
SECTION ONE
Answer these questions:
What obstacles might you face on an expedition to the interior of Australia?
What obstacles might await someone traveling from Europe to Greenland?
What obstacles would you encounter going from northern Africa to the Cape of Good Hope?
SECTION TWO
Answer this question: Do you think it would be easier to make these journeys today than it was several hundred years ago? In what ways is it now easier to travel these routes?
SECTION THREE
a) Look at one of these features at nationalgeographic.com:
b) Find out what the expedition’s route was and trace it with your fingers on the physical map. What obstacles do you think this expedition faced?
c) Read the information about the expedition. How did the people cope with the obstacles they met on their journey?
SECTION FOUR
Go to the following Web sites for information that will help you plan your expedition to the ocean floor:
Plan your journey. Answer these questions to help organize your plans:
Which ocean will you explore? Which part of that ocean?
What obstacles might you face? Look at the map of the ocean floor and the Web sites for some clues.
What types of equipment will be necessary?
What types of science experiments will you do down there? What will you be studying?
Betsy Hedberg of Curriculum Adventures wrote classroom ideas and family activities for the National Geographic Society’s World Map Giveaway. The American Plastics Council, Kodak, State Farm Insurance, and Subaru of America sponsored the Map Giveaway.
For other great teaching resources, visit http://www.nationalgeographic.com/education.
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