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Overview:
This lesson asks students to focus on people's innate navigational abilities. They will first read about animal navigation and will then compare animal to human navigational capabilities. They will then create travel brochures for an Outward Bound-style company, providing customers with tips on how to find their way if they get lost and can't rely on their map and compass.
Connections to the Curriculum:
Geography, science
Connections to the National Geography Standards:
Standard 2: "How to use mental maps to organize information about people, places, and environments in a spatial context"
Time:
Two to three hours
Materials Required:
- Computer with Internet access
- Paper
- Pen or pencil
Objectives:
Students will
- read and discuss an article on animal navigation;
- brainstorm the ways that people navigate innately, without using equipment, and compare human to animal navigation;
- research and discuss methods of human navigation; and
- create brochures for an adventure travel company, describing how customers will use their innate navigational skills to find their way if they get lost in the wilderness.
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:
Have students read the article "Secrets of Animal Navigation" from the Get Oriented Xpeditions activity and take notes on the scientific research being conducted and the evidence that has been found to indicate how these animals find their way over migration routes. Then discuss the techniques scientists believe animals use to navigate.
Development:
Ask students to work in groups to brainstorm the ways in which people navigate innately (using only their instincts and brains rather than maps and compasses). Do humans have the same capabilities as the animals they have read about? Do all people have the same innate navigational capabilities, or do some people seem better at it than others?
Ask students to think about their own sense of direction. Do they think this is one of their strengths, or do they have problems navigating? Do they know people who have excellent or terrible senses of direction?
Ask students to pretend they work for an adventure travel company that sends customers out into the wilderness to learn how to survive on their own for a few days (similar to the Outward Bound program). Their job is to create a brochure that helps the adventurers make the best use of their sense of directional, observational, map, and compass skills to make sure they don't get lost.
To prepare for their brochures, have students use the Internet or other resources to find out how to effectively use a map and compass, and ask them to brainstorm the ways in which people can navigate using their own internal resources such as observing landscape features. The travelers will only have access to a map and compass, not to any high-tech geographic positioning equipment. Ask them to take notes on what they learn.
Closing:
Discuss as a class the ways in which they think people can navigate without using any equipment. Then ask students to describe the equipment they have learned about and to explain how it helps people find their way.
Suggested Student Assessment:
Have students create their adventure travel brochures. The brochures should include
- a brief description of the travel destination;
- a detailed description of how to use a map and compass with diagrams;
- a list of tips on how to use your observational skills to find your way (in case your map and compass aren't enough help or you lose them); and
- a list of tips that would be particularly helpful for this destination (for example, tips for navigating through a mountainous landscape or for avoiding getting lost in the desert).
Extending the Lesson:
Have students create surveys to figure out whether people have a good sense of direction or whether they are "geographically challenged." Discuss the ways in which people might demonstrate a sense of direction, such as the ability to find one's way in a new city, to read a map, or to figure out which way is north at any given time. Also discuss the variables that could impact the survey. For example, if they ask a question about how to find a popular site in town, someone who has just moved into town would be at a disadvantage. For this reason, their surveys should include questions about how long a person has lived here and how much he or she has explored the area.
Ask each group to survey five to ten people and report the results to the class. Did they find any interesting or surprising results? How did people seem to do? How do students compare themselves to the people they surveyed? Why do they think some people seem to have a better sense of direction than others?
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