Students will discuss what it might have been like when, and where, their parents and grandparents grew up. The students will conduct interviews to see if their guesses were right. They will conclude by drawing pictures of their relatives living in this time and place.

Geography, history

Standard 17: "How to apply geography to interpret the past"

Three hours (not including interviews)

• Wall maps of the United States and the world (ideally hanging in the front of the classroom)
• Color construction paper
• Scissors
• Removable tape
• Drawing materials

Students will

• discuss what it might have been like when, and where, their parents and grandparents grew up;
• develop questions to ask their relatives about the time and place in which they grew up;
• conduct the interviews;
• decorate U.S. and world maps to illustrate the places where their relatives grew up;
• share their interview results with the class; and
• draw pictures of their relatives in the time and place where they grew up.

Ask students what they think it would have been like grow up when their parents did. What do they think their parents did for fun? At school? At home? What about their grandparents and other relatives—what was life like when they were growing up? Write their ideas on the board.

Help students develop questions to ask their parents, grandparents, or other adult relatives about what it was like when they grew up. Some sample questions might include the following:

• Where did you grow up?
• What did the place look like?
• How has that place changed?
• What were your favorite activities?
• What were the best and worst things about this place?

Have students write their questions on their own paper to take home, or give them slips of paper with these questions listed.

Have students interview their relatives, using the questions they've come up with. Ask them to note the responses or to have their relatives write down their answers as they tell the kids about their childhood homes.

Have students bring their interview results into class and turn them in.

Then have students cut out small (approximately two-by-two-inch/five-by-five centimeter) pieces of brightly colored construction paper and write their names on them. Each student should cut out one piece of paper for each relative they have interviewed.

Hang a large wall map of the United States and another of the world at the front of the classroom. Using removable tape, attach the students' pieces of paper to the places where their relatives grew up. You can place stagger pieces on top of each other in heavily represented locations, such as the region where the students now live.

Point to different parts of the map that have been labeled, and ask students with relatives from those places to share with the class some of the things they have learned in their interviews.

Ask students whether they enjoyed conducting the interviews and whether they learned any interesting things. What were the easiest and most difficult things about doing the interviews?

Ask students to draw pictures of their relatives living in the places where they grew up and doing the activities they did when they were kids. Older students can supplement their pictures with information they gather on the Internet or in the library about these places. Have them search Ask Jeeves Kids or Yahooligans! .

After students have completed their pictures, display them around the room.

Have students imagine that it's 30 years in the future and they are parents of elementary school children. What will they tell their children about what it was like in the place where they grew up? Have them draw pictures and, if they are writing, write short stories pretending that they are talking to their children.

Family Tree Maker
National Geographic: Xpeditions Activity—Geo-Generations