Classroom Activities: How will I employ strategies for the unit? To what time frame will they adhere?
The Map Practicum at Wilbur Cross High School
Day One
Striding
The map practicum will occur early in the unit as an opportunity for experiential learning. The first step will involve work in the classroom. The lesson will start with asking the students how they would go about making an accurate map of the room. As students share answers I would guide the discussion to problems of measurement and scale.
With the help of volunteer students, a demonstration of measuring strides and the room will follow. Demonstration one will include defining striding. Demonstration two will include calculating feet per stride and measuring the length of the room. Demonstration three will be applying the strides to the width of the room.
Students will keep notes on the demonstrations and be informed that they will each get the challenge of practicing measurement by stride and then applying it to a class project.
Students will be given a homework assignment to practice stride measuring in some area in or around where they live or in some other agreed upon area. They should report their findings in a journal entry of ½ to one pages in length titled: How I practiced measuring with striding?
Orienteering
Following the demonstration on striding the class will practice using the compass.
My opening questions will be "How can I tell which direction I am walking?" and "How do I know if I am walking North, South, East, or West?" Discussion of the natural landmarks on the earth and in the sky should follow.
Discussion should next turn toward answering prior knowledge about the compass. Points of discussion will include the acknowledgement of the cardinal ordinates and an elaboration on the difference of magnetic north from true north. Demonstration of using the compass to distinguish direction will follow. As time permits students may use the compass to determine the orientation of the walls of the room and/or practice striding along an ordinance.
For homework students should complete a journal entry in which they describe where the sun is in September, December, March, and June when they get up to come to school. A short explanation of how the earth's tilt toward the sun changes direction each season would be made if necessary. Preferably this would occur in more detail when the students have completed their assignment. Students will be informed that they will be given practice in using the compass and then have to apply it to a graded project.
Day Two
In day two of the practicum lesson students will practice stride measurement and orienteering with a compass in a larger area such as the schools butterfly garden (approximately 130'x 40').
Striding: In teams of three, students will figure out their strides per foot average and apply it toward measuring the length and width of the garden. A strides per foot average for the class could also be calculated.
Orienteering: Students will orient themselves in the garden with the compass. They will map the orientation of the walls of the garden and add their measurements.
Day Three: The Land Ordinance of Wilbur Cross High School
During a school block period (90 minutes) students will be charged with the challenge of mapping the school quadrangle using the compass, strides and measuring with chain. They will then 'grid' the quadrangle into 'student homesteads'. In day three of the practicum lesson students will use compass, striding, and chain measurement to map the central quadrangle of the school.
Upon completion of the quadrangle map on graphing paper, students will discuss and play with calculations for different sized homesteads. Proposals for homesteads of different size will be entertained. In the end the class will have created a number of oriented and 'gridded' maps of the courtyard that show 'homesteads of different sizes.
Back in the classroom on another day, these maps would be compared to maps of the boundaries laid out for the homesteads created by the Land Ordinance of 1785.
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