Basic Skills: Geography

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Description:

Lessons in the Basic Skills series help social studies instructors respond to the need to both teach course content and provide meaningful instruction in basic skills. Organized by skills, this unit is designed to be a supplement to the adopted geography textbook, not a replacement for it.

Topics covered in Basic Skills: Geography include primary resources, geographic influences on lifestyles in the Middle East, natural resources, modern Olympic sites, and future U.S. growth patterns. Part 1 strengthens reading skills with lessons such as Using the Textbook Effectively: Themes of Geography and Using Primary Sources: Eyewitness to History. Part 2 reinforces study skills with lessons that include Listening for Information: Antarctica and Taking Notes: Climatic Changes and Forests. Part 3 addresses reference and information research skills. Lessons include Using an Atlas: Natural Resources and Using the Internet: Searching the World Wide Web. Part 4 focuses on maps, globes, and visual materials. Lessons include Distinguishing Scale: Using a Map and Distance Chart and Using Charts: Population and Population Density. Part 5 provides practice in using information skills, with lessons such as Comparing and Contrasting: Map Projections and Distinguishing between Fact and Opinion: U.S. Immigration. Part 6 explores interpersonal relationships and social participation skills. Lessons include Decision-Making: Nuclear Power and Social and Political Responsibilities of Citizenship: World Hunger.

Activities:

Students conduct research in the library media center and on the Internet, work with maps and globes, use national geographic standards and themes, use newspapers and magazines to gain geographic information, analyze information on urban geography and population growth, distinguish fact from opinion, and develop group guidelines. They also compare and contrast historical and present-day Africa, assess the impact of the Greeks and Romans, examine twentieth-century military conflicts, explore Chinese and Japanese culture and history, and investigate Mexico during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.