Easton, Connecticut and the Five Themes of Geography

Mrs. Anastasakis
September-October

Core Description

Students will:

1  Work together, in groups, using the Student Team Learning model
2  Identify the 5 themes of geography
3  Apply geographic knowledge, skills and concepts to understand human behavior in relation to the physical and cultural environment
4  Use the 5 themes to organize the study of student’s hometown and regional community, namely Easton
5  Learn and use Inspiration to create a graphic organizer while working in heterogeneous groups
6  Explore the pre-selected websites to gather information relevant to their assigned theme
7  Explore secondary sources (books from the Media Center) to gather information
8  Create a final product in the form of either a presentation or a webpage

1. Use and create maps to organize information about people, places and environment in a special context. (Location and place)

2. Examine the physical geography and environment of Easton to identify how the community uses, changes and adapts to the environment. (Place and human environmental interactions)

3. Examine and identify how people, goods and ideas move throughout the town of Easton. (movement)

4. Identify Easton as belonging to a region within the country; identify regions within Easton to see how each one fits into the greater community; compare and contrast characteristics of nearby towns and cities. (region)

1. Create graphic organizer to organize ideas for informative webpage

2. Interpret text by using prior knowledge and experiences

3. Use a variety of monitoring and self-correcting methods (skimming, scanning, reading ahead, re-reading, using resources, summarizing, re-telling, re-adjusting speed)

4. Interact with others in creating, interpreting and evaluating written, oral and visual texts

5. Gather, select, organize and analyze information from primary and secondary sources

6. Engage in a process of generating ideas, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing or presenting

7. Proofread and edit for grammar, spelling, punctuation and capitalization

8. Speak and write using conventional patterns of syntax and diction

2. Share webs with class using the projector and notebooks

3. Use Internet to view websites on Easton and Connecticut, with particular emphasis on Fairfield County

4. Critically evaluate the websites for relevancy to specific theme

5. Use Word to write an essay as part of the class website on Easton

6. Use Word to review and revise essays

7. Use digital cameras and/or 35 mm cameras to photograph characteristics and sites for the webpage

8. Re-size and re-format the digital photos for the webpage

9. Scan the 35 mm photographs for the webpage

10. Use Excel to create graphs

11. Use Powerpoint to create a presentation for the webpage

12. Scan student-created maps and graphs into Powerpoint presentations and/or webpage

13. Use Front Page to create the webpage