This lesson introduces students to the differences between traditional towns and modern suburbs. Students will visit a virtual community and view aerial photographs to compare and contrast these two types of towns. They will conclude by drawing two mental maps.

Geography

Standard 2: "How to use mental maps to organize information about people, places, and environments in a spatial context"
Standard 12: "The processes, patterns, and functions of human settlement"
Standard 18: "How to apply geography to interpret the present and plan for the future"

Three hours

• Computer with Internet acces
• Map of a major metropolitan area, showing city and suburbs
• Optional but very helpful: a projection device to display Web sites to the entire class

Students will

• draw pictures of their town;
• discuss the things that are important for a town to have;
• identify a city and its suburbs on a map;
• hypothesize and list the good and not-so-good things about living in a city and in the suburbs;
• take a tour of a virtual town and compare it to scenes of suburban sprawl;
• view aerial photographs of suburban sprawl and hypothesize the impacts of sprawl on the environment;
• draw mental maps of traditional towns and modern suburbs; and
• write sentences describing their maps.

Ask students to draw pictures of their town. This should be a "free drawing," so you don’t need to give them any specific directions on what to draw.

Discuss students' pictures. What features of the town did most kids draw? What are some of the more unusual things kids have noticed? What features does everyone agree are very important to the town? Why did they include some features and leave others out?

Make a two-column chart on the board or on a large piece of paper that the whole class can see. Label one column "New Urbanism" and the other "Sprawl."

[Note: "New urbanism" refers to a recent movement to design towns based on traditional town models; you can just tell students that these are pictures of traditional town or city scenes. Likewise, if you don't want to introduce the word "sprawl" right now, you can tell students that these pictures are typical of new suburbs.]

Ask students if they know the difference between a city and a suburb. Do they live in a city, a suburb, or another type of place (e.g., a small town or a rural area)?

Show students a map of a major metropolitan area, such as Chicago or San Francisco. The map should clearly show the city and its suburbs. If you would like to make a map on the computer, use MapMachine or MapQuest.

As students look at the map, have them identify the city and some of its suburbs. Explain that the suburbs closest to the city are usually older than the suburbs farther from the city, although the more remote suburbs are frequently older small towns that have spread outward into the surrounding countryside.

Ask students to list the good things about living in the city and the suburbs. Then ask them to list the things they think would not be so good about living in each place. Write their ideas in the class chart.

Have students go to National Geographic's Virtual World—The New Suburb? feature, or use a projection device to show this page to the entire class. Explain that this feature shows pictures of a town that is designed to look like a traditional ("old-fashioned") town or city center rather than a modern suburb.

Have students click on the following features:

• The light-rail train
• The parked car
• Ted's Pizza Parlor (they will need to "move right" to see it)
• The mixed housing ("move right" one frame from Ted's Pizza Parlor; it's the middle row house)

At each "stop," ask students to click on the tabs to learn about the careful planning of new urbanism versus the disorganized growth of sprawl.

At each "stop," pause to discuss the differences between the two pictures. Help students understand what the pictures show. Add words and phrases to the class chart.

Explain that as more new suburbs are built, many people are concerned that too much land is being used up. This is one of the reasons that some people would like new suburbs to be modeled after more old-fashioned towns, similar to the virtual suburb they have just visited.

Have students look at some aerial photographs of sprawl by going to the following Web pages:

National Geographic Magazine: The American Dream—Urban Sprawl
Suburban Sprawl Slide Show

Ask them to think about how this type of suburban design might impact animals, plants, air, and water. Add their ideas to the chart, and share with the class some of your own knowledge of the effects of sprawl. (You can get information on this subject from the "Resources and Links" section of the New Suburb feature.)

Discuss the class chart, asking students to summarize the main differences between a traditional town/new urbanist suburb and a modern suburb affected by sprawl.

Ask students to describe the type of town they would most like to live in. They will probably have different answers. Ask them to state whether they would like to live in the suburbs, the city, or another type of place.

Ask students to draw two maps: one of a traditional town and one of a modern suburb. They should draw these maps from memory, based on what they have learned in this lesson.

Ask older students to write at least four sentences describing each of their maps.

Have students draw maps of their ideal towns. They should incorporate concepts they have learned in this lesson and recorded in the class chart. Their maps should show residential and commercial areas and methods of transportation.

Have students share their maps with the class, describing the town and what they like about these places.

National Geographic Magazine: The American Dream—Urban Sprawl
National Geographic: Virtual World—The New Suburb?
Suburban Sprawl Slide Show