Graber-Grace Lesson One 1

Name: Jenneca Graber-Grace Lesson Topic: How do we know where we are?

Content Area: AP Human Geography Grades: 9-12

Lesson Content

Background Information/ Relevance/ Context/ Rationale (Purpose) –

This lesson falls on the fifth day of the first unit in AP Human Geography (Unit 1: Geography and its
Nature). There are 7 total days in the unit. Students will have already learned about sense of place and
mental maps, and what it means to for a place to be more than just a location. This lesson is important
because it will get students thinking geographically and using logic and reasoning along with knowledge
of geographic features to identify certain places. Additionally, this lesson will be focusing on the CLASS
dimensions of Positive Climate and Quality of Feedback.

While planning this lesson, especially the key vocabulary section, my goal is to make each term relevant
to student’s lives and provide quality feedback to student responses and questions in order to help
maintain a positive climate and build student understanding.

Relevant AP Framework Connections – Interpret maps and analyze geospatial data.

Learning Targets —
(1) As a result of this lesson, students will understand how to use www.geoguessr.com to analyze and
determine geographic location along with cultural landscapes.
(2) Gain an understanding of basic geographic terminology.

Assessments:

Diagnostic Formative Summative

Bell Ringer Call & Response Chapter 1 Quiz

Aligned with Learning Target 1
Criteria for assessment:
I will be walking around and
checking in with students to see
how they’re doing, what they’re
writing down, what they’re
missing, etc, and I’ll use this to
inform what I touch on in the de-
breif.
Aligned with which Aligned with Learning Targets 1 & 2
Learning Target 2 Criteria for assessment:
Criteria for assessment: Students will take a 35 question quiz on
Practice distinguishing the chapter 1 reading packet and these
between concentration notes at the end of the unit.
and density as a class
through call & response.
I’ll also be asking for
students’ thoughts
throughout the lesson.
 Graber-Grace Lesson One 2

Proactive Planning for Learning Differences: – What planned supports have you included to make
the content accessible for all learners (i.e., groups of students and/or specific students) and to build
upon learners’ diversity? Be sure any modifications are explicitly explained in the procedures/steps
outlined below.

I know that there are several students in the class who struggle with anxiety, and for this reason I will not
cold call these students because I don’t want to make them feel pressured or uncomfortable.
Additionally, I have one student who always volunteers lots of information, so I want to be sure to
include him in the lesson but not let him take time away unconstructively.

Procedures/Steps in the Lesson:

1.Bell Ringer: GeoGuessr (10 min)
Introduce the activity with “How do we know where we are? Say your friend plans a surprise for you.
They put a bandana over your eyes, drive somewhere, and then you get out of the car. You take off the
bandana, you’ve never been there before. You’re standing on a street in a town you’ve never seen. How
do you figure out where you are? What kinds of things could you look at and use to figure it out?”

Model one geoguessr location, then ask students to try themselves. Tell them to pay attention to what
about the place where they’re dropped is helping them rule out some places and zero in on others.
Explain that there is a spot on the accompanying worksheet with space for them to write down clues /
details to help them figure it out.

Students will go to geoguessr.com and complete a 5-part challenge where they are dropped somewhere
in the world via google earth, and they must explore the map and look for evidence to help them
discern what their geographic location might be. Once they feel they have gathered enough evidence,
students will click on a spot on the world map (included on website) to guess where they are, and
geoguessr will tell them how close they got to the actual location.

Debrief after 10 minutes: “What skills did you use to determine where you were? What did you look for
in scenes to help you determine where you were? Language patterns, terrain, etc. What helped you
narrow down your choices?”

2.Guided Vocabulary Notes- (Concentration thru Globalization)

Mr. Bunin and I are sharing this part of the lesson. Students were given a two-column graphic organizer
with vocabulary words in the right column and some guiding words in the left last class, but mostly blank
space (see materials section for link). Mr. Bunin will pick up to cover regions, and then I will talk about
the connections between places.

● Distribution - the way a feature is arranged in space “everything we are about to look at has to do
with the distribution of people, places, ideas, and resources”
● “Concentration is the extent of a features’ spread over space, or how close together or far apart
things are— so think about juice from concentrate - what is concentrated juice? (expected
response: It’s juice you have to mix with water or else its too strong) Right, so the extra water is
removed which means the juice is 7x more concentrated than regular juice. Think about
 Graber-Grace Lesson One 3

geographical features this way. If a geographical feature is concentrated, what might that
mean?” (expected response: It’s all close together in one spot)

● Density is the frequency in which something occurs in space, measured by land area & the
number of these features. So if neighborhood A has 30 houses and neighborhood B has 20
houses, which has a higher density? (A)
○ Look at this image here (slide 73). What does this tell us about density and
concentration?
○ Now let’s practice a little bit- (slide 74) which of these boxes have the highest density?
Which have the highest concentration?
○ (slide 72) Here we have a map of the united states in 1952 and in 2013. During which
year was there a higher density of Baseball Teams? (2013)
■ Which has a higher concentration? (1952)

● Pattern: geometric arrangement of objects in space (for example, NY’s city plan is a grid; this
connects back to our sense of place reading - - older cities tend to have patterns which follow the
land, while newer cities have more modern, generally uniform/ grid city designs
● Hearth -
○ Picture of colonial hearth - ask students what they see? Where in the image is their
attention drawn? Then go to image of a chimney on a house and ask what happens if a
fire is lit in the hearth. Where does the smoke go? (the air) Then where? (it spreads out).
This is a good analogy for a cultural hearth.
○ if we look at this map of the world’s oldest cultural hearths, what can we tell just from this
image and whatever background knowledge each of you has about what a hearth is?
(expected response: the origin of where a culture or practice begins)
● Diffusion
○ define: the way a culture spreads out from its hearth — think about trends that spread
throughout the school or on social media -
○ “Relocation diffusion is the spread of an IDEA by physical movement of people. (show
image of westward expansion) what is this an image of? What was happening during this
time period in America? (people were moving west and taking with them their culture,
technology, ideas, and religions) - - another good example is the quakers in pennsylvania
- quakers fled to PA to escape religious persecution, and to this day there is a large and
flourishing population of quakers in PA.”
○ Expansion:
■ Hierarchical expansion involves the spreading outward from larger or more
powerful areas or people to smaller or less powerful areas or people. Show
students the images, including the hierarchical chart. “We can relate this to our
school administration hierarchy” (show image) “lots of times the high points of a
hierarchy are big cities.
■ Contagious - LAUREL & YANNY? does anyone know where this video came
from? We can look at the spread of culture in the same way — instead of through
the internet, how did culture spread from one place to another? (Expected
 Graber-Grace Lesson One 4

responses: trade, migration, warfare, etc.) also diseases spread this way; think of
it as a wave - look at the gif of the spread of the flu and emphasize how
contagious diffusion differs from hierarchical in the way it spreads.
■ Stimulus
● So if coca cola is the first soda, what does it spark a craving for?
● If mcdonalds is the first fast food chain, the iDEA of fast food spreads, not
just mcdonalds, the important thing about stimulus diffusion is that the
base idea is the same, but it changes to fit the culture its in.
● Globalization/ distance decay/ space-time compression- explain that “it used to be that the
further away two places were, the less likely they were to interact. Now, with the rise of
globalization and increasing technological advancements, we see that highly developed areas
can much more easily be in contact with each other than less developed areas” (show images of
distance decay and space time compression here)
● Mr. Bunin will finish the rest, concluding with Remote Sensing, which relates back to the
geoguessr task. He has the rest of the class after the notes.

Materials/ Supplies/ Sources/ Digital and Interactive Instructional Technology:

● Computers w/ Internet Access
● GeoGuessr website
● GeoGuessr assistive worksheet
● Vocabulary Graphic Organizer
● Key Terms Powerpoint