We have a student teacher this semester in our Geography Department. She is getting ready for her big observation and is wanting to use the iPads (she thought it would be innovative and creative).
I was so excited that she came to me for help. (off the topic of iPads, I am hoping this will help her realize librarians are there to help and cause her to use her librarian at wherever she gets a job)
We discussed the unit she would be covering and some of the specific topics this area covers.
We looked at the Earth Observer app to see how it related to the topic. It has a whole section on natural disasters (which is one of the topics of physical geography they would be looking at). We created some questions and ideas of how to use this, and still give the kids some accountability by turning in something at the end.
We decided to look at regions of the US and the trends for different kinds of natural disasters. We are going to give them a map, and have them use different colors to shade areas that are more prone to certain disasters. We will then have some questions about why they think that is.
We will then have them look at other countries and do the same thing. They will then discuss what the areas that are prone to specific disasters have in common. How are they different? How has technology helped these areas? And so on, figuring out some critical points of physical geography.
She is going to actually create the questions based on the notes we took at our meeting. I will be in the class during the assignment to help answer questions and for technical support.
I think this will be a really good activity for the students, because it is geared toward the tactile and visual learners (which most students are). They will have to interpret a map using technology as well as infer about these places using the information that they gathered. The lesson will be Monday February 21, we will see how it goes!
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