Geography Projects

[Aubrey]

Aside from specific curricula, has there been a project that you've done w/ your kids that has been especially fun, interesting, thought-provoking?

 

I've seen salt maps mentioned, but I don't actually know what those are--homemade-playdough-type-topographical maps? That seems like it could get really...space constrictive? But maybe I'm wrong?

 

What else? I only had Geography once, & the main things I remember are a) do not flood islands w/ stray colored pencil marks, b) my teacher's childhood nickname, c) the Berlin Wall coming down to the tune of "We Didn't Start the Fire," & d) the smell of the old building. (I love old school building smell & the matching rust-colored carpet.)

 

I think my geo teacher was more of a philosophical/hard rock person than a specifically *geography* teacher, though. It seems like we had more class lectures on band leaders than on mountains. :D

[Sahamamama]

:bigear: We've got Geography lined up for next year, so I'm listening in.

[NanceXToo]

We did a Flat Stanley project one summer. We sent a bunch of Flat Stanleys to people in different states, even a few different countries. We recruited friends, family, friends of friends, online friends, etc to send our Stanleys to.

 

We sent him with introductory letters and questionnaires. People were asked to answer some questions about where they live, to "dress" Stanley (in whatever way they wanted, whether it was with markers, construction paper, fabric, etc) in a manner that depicted the area or climate where they live, were encouraged to send (via email or snail mail) photos, post cards or any other souvenirs they felt like sending, that would show what their area was like and show Flat Stanley "doing" things in their area while he "visited" and so on.

 

It was a lot of fun getting our Stanleys back and receiving updates and seeing photos and so on. We got some interesting things back in the mail and learned some fun facts about different places.

 

I kept a Flat Stanley blog for a while so everyone could share in his adventures. I eventually stopped updating but you can check out much of our Flat Stanley project here:

 

http://travelingwithflatstanley.blogspot.com/2009/06/flat-stanley-joins-family.html

 

(That's the very first entry, then you can see they are numbered on the side bar to the left so you can click through as many entries as you want. For some of the reason when I click on some of them, I get an error message, but then when I backspace and try to click on it again, it goes through).

 

There are lots of fun pictures of "Stanley" in all different locations and doing fun things- we really had a lot of fun with that project! :)

[Rosie_0801]

What else? I only had Geography once, & the main things I remember are a) do not flood islands w/ stray colored pencil marks, b) my teacher's childhood nickname, c) the Berlin Wall coming down to the tune of "We Didn't Start the Fire," & d) the smell of the old building. (I love old school building smell & the matching rust-colored carpet.)

 

 

Wow. The variation in geography classes amazes me. I learned about a) how the teacher's son got altitude sickness climbing Mt Kilimanjaro and the teacher didn't, even though he was 30 years older and smoked like a chimney and b) tropical diseases.

 

It beats me what he was supposed to be teaching. Every week he'd open the book, sniff at it, close it and launch into one of the above stories. Eventually he decided he'd better teach the course in case someone asked, did so in a really boring double period which I remember nothing about other than tropical diseases being way more interesting, then he went back to his anecdotes on the abovementioned topics.

 

I don't actually have any contributions to make unless you think marking on a map which parts of the globe are prone to malaria, bilharzia and ebola is a good idea :lol:

 

Rosie

[8filltheheart]

Ds is doing OM's 9th grade world geo course. It is really into projects. Some adaptable ideas for younger kids would be:

 

writing an alphabet book based on things related to a specific country (can't remember what it was, but he was really creative with Q for Russia),

 

comparison chart for health stats (like avg age of death, infant mortality)

 

geography and climate study (how do mountains and deserts impact weather.....avg rainfall, temp, etc)

[Closeacademy]

Oak Meadow 5 has the children spend several months planning a trip across the country. They are supposed to map out a route, get brochures from various stops and then make a diary of the trip including mapwork, things that they did, etc. It is a lot of fun.:001_smile:

[Hunter]

One of the links gave me an idea.

 

I'm going to hang up a world map in the kitchen and start adding recipe cards and pictures, to it as I prepare and eat new challenging foods. Maybe even photos of me and friends eating some of the more challenging foods.

[hsbaby]

I wrote a blog post recently on what we do for geography this year. I host about 5 families every other week for a geography group. I started this last year and everyone that participated has returned this year. We love it:) Here's a link to the post where I talk about it:

 

http://3littleshellfish.blogspot.com/search/label/geography%20group