Our Changing Planet: Activities and Lessons for Exploring The Earth

This collection of lesson plans and activities allows students to investigate Earth, its processes, and its inhabitants. These resources provide ideas for integrating topographic maps into geography, science, environmental studies, history, and mathematics curricula. Included are 'map mysteries', which use topographic and thematic maps as starting points to uncover mysteries about the cultural and physical geography of the Earth, and ideas on how to use the Degree Confluence Project, in which people visit each of the intersections of full-degree latitude and longitude lines in the world, taking photographs at each location and writing about their journeys. There are also lesson ideas for using corn mazes in geography education and a map interpretation activity in which students use maps to select a hypothetical site for athletes to train for the Olympics. Other links access quizzes on remote sensing, geography, our national parks, landforms, and other topics. Educational levels: Middle school, High school