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Overview:
In this lesson, students will practice map-reading skills. Using a drought map of Afghanistan from National Geographic's Afghanistan: Land in Crisis site, students will learn how to recognize drought, where drought can occur, and how drought affects the people who live in those places.
Connections to the Curriculum:
Geography
Connections to the 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 15: "How physical systems affect human systems"
Time:
One to two hours
Materials Required:
Objectives:
Students will
- look at a drought map of Afghanistan and discuss the causes of drought;
- compare a drought map with a political map; and
- discuss the impacts of drought on people.
Geographic Skills:
Acquiring Geographic Information
Organizing Geographic Information
Analyzing Geographic Information
S u g g e s t e d P r o c e d u r e
Opening:
Define and discuss drought (a good definition can be found online in the Columbia Encyclopedia). Explain that drought occurs in many places around the world. Ask students if they have ever lived in or visited a place that was experiencing a drought. What was it like? How does a drought affect people in areas experiencing a drought? How does it affect agriculture?
Development:
On the "Afghanistan: Land in Crisis" map (available in print or online), refer to "Drought and Earthquakes Ravage a Region," one of the inset maps. Using overhead images or printouts, have students look at the drought map and tell you what they see. What parts of Afghanistan are the driest? What kinds of plants would grow in such places? What animals would live in a dry area?
Have students find cities or towns on the map and, using the legend, discern which cities are the driest. What can students conclude about each of the towns based on the precipitation (or lack thereof) received there? For example, how do students think the residents of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, get their drinking water?
Closing:
Review the concepts of drought students learned in this activity. How can students apply what they have learned to their own lives?
Suggested Student Assessment:
Using the MapMachine, select the Annual Precipitation map. Students should then select the town they live in and find out how much precipitation it receives annually. What can students say about where they live based on the information on this map? Does their area experience any threat of drought? Explain that insufficient rainfall for extended periods of time can happen in many places, not only in dry climates.
Extending the Lesson:
Using the Web sites below, have students examine the United States during the extreme drought of the 1930s, when lack of rainfall devastated the U.S. Great Plains. Called the Dust Bowl, its area spread to alarming dimensions (about 50 million acres/20 million hectares). What can students learn about drought by looking at images of the Dust Bowl?
Using lyrics from one of Woody Guthrie's songs as an example, invite your students to write a song about the Dust Bowl and what they think it would have been like to live at that time.
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