Physical and human characteristics of places are inextricably intertwined; where people choose to settle and how they perceive and use the land and its resources change that place over time, and, in turn, its continuing settlement and uses—as well as the character and significance of the community it supports. Even before it became the location for the first permanent English colony in North America, the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed—an area on the east coast of the United States that includes Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia—have played a significant role in U.S. history and are a prime example of the evolving relationship humans have with their environment.

In this lesson, students will conduct research on the Chesapeake Bay, from Captain John Smith's explorations of Native American settlements in the early seventeenth century to the present, and examine how these changes over time can help illuminate the interrelationships between people and places. They will then apply a similar approach to their local area. Through an examination of a timeline of change, students will make connections between the present interaction with place and its future, and consider ways that they can help shape the future course of both the Chesapeake Bay watershed and their own community.

Geography, history, anthropology

Standard 4: "The physical and human characteristics of places"
Standard 14: "How human actions modify the physical environment"
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"

Four to six hours

• Computer with Internet access
• John Smith's 1612 Map of Virginia
• Chalkboard or whiteboard
• Drawing paper and writing/sketching materials
• Student Questions handout (PDF, Adobe Acrobat Reader required)

Students will

• compare historical maps with modern-day maps;
• explore information about the history of the Chesapeake Bay watershed;
• research various facets of life in the Chesapeake Bay region over time;
• examine the life and culture of one community in the Chesapeake Bay watershed to describe its interconnectedness with history and current conditions;
• identify patterns of change in the Chesapeake Bay, and apply that understanding to their local communities; and
• make predictions about the future of the Chesapeake Bay and their local watershed based on current trends and consider the potential impact of community action initiatives.

Ask students what newcomers to their local community would find if they explored the area. What resources would they note? How would the community appear to be organized to make use of them? What would attract them most to stay and live in the area? What might not be appealing about living there? Then, ask students to consider how their answers might have differed a hundred years ago. What about hundreds or even thousands of years ago?

Discuss with students how people and places are interconnected and how their relationships evolve over time. People are attracted to places in part because of the resources they provide, but their interaction with and use of these resources change over time, which affects the resources themselves.

Explain to students that one well-documented example of this interrelationship is the Chesapeake Bay watershed, an area on the east coast of the United States including Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. Show students the area covered by the Chesapeake Bay watershed using a map of the United States or this map from the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Program Web site. The bay was the location for Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in North America, and it has continued to the present day to play an important but changing role—culturally, economically, and environmentally—in the history of the United States and North America. Tell students that they will explore the history of the Chesapeake Bay and learn about both its influence on early American settlement and the challenges that the human presence presents for the present-day watershed. Explain that students will use what they learn to springboard research into the ways different features of land or bodies of water predispose them to certain uses, and in return the ways those uses have an impact on the environment and, coming full circle, affect the communities that depend on them.

Introduction to the Chesapeake Bay—Then and Now
If students are not already familiar with the concept of a watershed, briefly introduce the topic. First ask students if anyone is familiar with the term. Write all ideas and definitions on the board. Then explain that a watershed is an area of land whose water (from rainfall, streams, or other water bodies) drains into a larger body of water. An information sheet is available on the EPA Web site. (Note: Click "Print Version" for a printable page.)

Show students this map of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Ask students to name the main waterways that flow into the Chesapeake Bay. Then point out that there are many small tributaries that also flow into these main waterways.

Introduce students to the Chesapeake Bay by viewing the National Geographic documentary "Voyage of Discovery," available online on the National Geographic Exploring the Chesapeake—Then and Now Web site. Ask students what they recall about the bay from the video. Have students answer these questions (PDF, Adobe Acrobat Reader required). A teacher version (PDF, Adobe Acrobat Reader required) is also available to check for understanding.

Next, have students spend some time exploring the site to learn more about the history of the Chesapeake Bay. Break students into small groups and assign one or two dates on the "then" map to each group. Ask each group to view the information and video for their assigned date to explore ways the Chesapeake has influenced American culture from its infancy. Groups should take notes and then present what they learned to the whole class. Then using the same or different groups, assign cities from the "now" map and have students research the ways American culture has influenced the bay, as evidenced in the state of the bay today. Again, students should be prepared to present what they have learned to the whole group. Have students answer these questions (PDF, Adobe Acrobat Reader required). A teacher version (PDF, Adobe Acrobat Reader required) is also available to check for understanding.

After each group has presented its information, lead an open-ended discussion about the different information available in the two tours. What were the most significant changes between "then" and "now"? What connections can they make between the past and the present? How do they think the past might influence the present? Likewise, how might the past and present affect the future of a particular area?

Activity 1: How Did "Then" Lead to "Now"?—A Chesapeake Timeline of Change
Now that students understand some key points in the Chesapeake story, have them use this as a basis for further investigation into the bay's complex history. Divide students into small workgroups and then ask each group to investigate an assigned time period in the history of the Chesapeake Bay. Some possible resources for students' research include:

An interactive bay timeline
The Noblest Bay
Chesapeake Bay Timeline from the Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network

Some additional background/teacher resources on the bay over time include: About the Bay, History of the Chesapeake Bay, and Bay Plain and Piedmont: A Landscape History of the Chesapeake Heartland from 1.3 Billion Years Ago to 2000.

After students have researched their assigned time periods, bring the class back together for a whole-group discussion. Ask each group to report on the major events during the period which they explored. Then have students consider patterns of change between "then" and "now" on the Chesapeake Bay. Ask them to predict how changes to the Chesapeake Bay might continue into the future.

Then, have the class complete a timeline of the Chesapeake Bay's history. The timeline should represent the milestones of every decade, as well as major events that have affected the Chesapeake Bay's population, fishing, or natural resources.

• Have students regroup (into their original groups) and then create a list of major events from their time period.
• Ask groups to visit the Interactive Timeline and select "date" as a unit of measure. Each group should then work from their research notes to complete the interactive timeline for their assigned time periods.
• After all the individual timelines are complete, combine them to create a complete historical timeline of the Chesapeake Bay.

Activity 2: A Community Case Study
As a whole group, read the National Geographic News article "The Case of the Vanishing Islands" to learn about one community that has been inextricably linked to the Chesapeake Bay as far back as John Smith's time. Before reading, ask students to listen for information about:

• the people of Smith Island;
• how these people depend upon the Chesapeake for their livelihood;
• how the bay has influenced the community's culture, economics, and history; and
• one current threat to the community and its lifestyle.

After reading the article, write information about each of these points on the board, and ask students to summarize the information.

Have students learn more about threats to the island at the Martin National Wildlife Refuge Web page and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Baltimore District Report Smith Island, Maryland Environmental Restoration and Protection Project.

Ask individual or small groups of students to research the following questions (you may wish to assign one question per group):

• What are some threats to wildlife and the environment?
• How has Smith Island changed because of land use in other areas around the bay?
• How might those changes influence the future uses of the island?
• What is being done to help protect and restore the island's environment?

Have students prepare an educational brochure that describes the actions being taken to preserve the environment within the Martin National Wildlife Refuge.

• Have students visit the Xpeditions Student Print Press, and select the brochure option.
• Brochures should include the information researched earlier, such as specific threats to wildlife and the steps being taken by the Environmental Restoration and Protection Project.
• Have students include illustrations or printed images (be sure to credit sources of printed images).

Activity 3: Timeline Connections
Explain to students that they will be conducting research into the resources provided by the Chesapeake Bay:

1. How these resources have affected productivity, population growth, and economic development in the region for centuries.
2. How that growth has created drastic problems for the bay and its watershed.

Divide the class into groups of three or four students. Have each group select a topic upon which to conduct research and prepare a presentation, including a timeline of change specific to their theme that illustrates the relationships between people's changing uses of the watershed and its resources and the state of health of the watershed. They should also include maps and other images to illustrate their findings. Tell students there will likely be overlap in the information they find, and that the goal of the project is to present a complete picture of how the relationship between the Chesapeake Bay watershed and the people who live there has changed over time.

Before groups select their topics, first have them brainstorm and list as a class some possible areas to research. Then suggest four main topics: cultures and lifestyles, population and housing development, transportation, and economy. Have students place the topics they listed during the brainstorming session into these four topics. Then have each group select a research topic from those on the list. You may wish to have groups research a general area such as economics, or a more specific topic, such as the fishing industry.

Next, allow each group time to research the issues related to the theme they've selected. Have students visit the Web sites on this listing of Chesapeake Bay Resources (PDF, Adobe Acrobat Reader required) to gather more background information on the bay and its resources.

Have students present the highlights of their research, and then lead a discussion about how the various themes are intertwined. Ask students to suggest ways that the health of the watershed and bay has contributed to its history—and possible future.

Finally, have each group contribute to a class book on the history of the Chesapeake Bay watershed by preparing two or three pages on their theme. They should include printed images or drawings, maps, charts, etc. along with text that summarizes the effects of the topic they researched on the health of the watershed over time.

A Model for Change
Have students consider the possible future health of the Chesapeake Bay by using the information they gathered in their research. Ask students to make predictions about the bay relevant to their themes (e.g., population, economics, etc.). Students should consider how the patterns of change are most likely to continue into the future and provide rationales for their predictions. Have students research some of the efforts being made to improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay and think about how these action projects may alter the bay's possible future. Then have students add their forecasts to the class book, in an epilogue that predicts the future of the Chesapeake Bay for the next 100 years.

Making Local Connections
Have students research their local communities for watershed and/or other environmental issues. Have students look for maps of and information about their communities' histories to determine what has changed and why. Encourage them to consider factors such as the economy, population changes, resource use, and historical events that both contributed to and resulted from those changes.

As they did in their research on the Chesapeake Bay, have students select one theme (e.g., cultures and lifestyles, transportation, housing and urban development, economy, etc.) that has directly affected and been affected by changes over time in their local watershed. Then have students create a class book that illustrates the relationships between their community's uses of the watershed and its resources and the state of health of the watershed. See the Related Links section for some suggested Web sites for student research.

Just as they did in Activity 3 and A Model for Change, have students illustrate their predictions about what may happen to their local watershed in the next 100 years. Predictions should reflect an understanding of how past or current land use affects the future of that land and should include any anticipated action plans that would be necessary to ensure the successful growth and pattern of change. The following Web sites will help students to conduct their research and to gather action plan ideas:

Adopt Your Watershed
Adopt-A-Watershed
15 Things You Can Do to Make a Difference in Your Watershed

• Have students read this Washington Post article about the history of Smith Island's population declines and what some people see as a potential future of ecotourism: "Looking Toward a Reincarnation." Then have students discuss the issues and express an opinion as to whether they would leave the island or stay to build its future.
  
  
• Help students access John Smith's 1612 Map of Virginia, available on the Captain John Smith 400 Project Web site. If Internet access is not available, distribute printed copies of the map. Spend some time discussing aspects of the John Smith map. Explain to students that John Smith created the map from notes and observations he made while traveling through the region in a small boat called a shallop. Ask students to reflect on the design of the map, and how accurate the map appears to be compared to the National Geographic's Exploring the Chesapeake—Now map they reviewed. What similarities and differences can they find between the maps?
  
  
• Have students further investigate Captain John Smith's explorations of the Chesapeake Bay and then compare and contrast the native settlements he and his crew documented with the new colony he helped establish at Jamestown. Ask students to visit the Exploring the Chesapeake—Then tour, as well as this page of additional resource links, to get started: After they have conducted research on this topic, have students list some of the ways both the colonists and the Native Americans interacted with the Chesapeake. Then ask students to compare and contrast their findings using the interactive Venn Diagram.
  
  
• Join teachers participating in the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Chesapeake Classrooms to share classroom resources, lesson and unit plans, current watershed information, and best practices. The program online is part of National Geographic's EdNet communities for educators.

Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
Captain John Smith Four Hundred Project
Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network
Chesapeake Bay Program
History Globe
Jamestown Journey
National Geographic Magazine: Saving the Chesapeake
National Geographic News: The Case of the Vanishing Islands
National Geographic: EdNet—Chesapeake Classrooms Community
National Geographic: Exploring the Chesapeake—Then and Now
National Geographic: MapMachine
National Park Service: Chesapeake Bay Special Resource Study
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency