Physical Geography
Background of Lesson
The beginning of this class is a little lecture heavy. I do this for two reasons.
There is a lot of information to go over, and lecture is the most efficient way to get that information to the students
It introduces the students to what they can expect in social studies classes moving forward- sometimes you just have to take notes.
This lesson is aimed at teaching the students 3 things:
Where Utah is in the world, specifically in relationship to everything else
Along with that, it introduces them to the concepts of longitude and latitude
How Utah has changed, physically, in the past. And how that change has led to us having such a beautiful state today.
What Utah's 3 regions and 3 climates are, and how each is differ from one another.
Also, depending on the length of class periods and student ability, this lesson may take two classes to complete.
Instructions for Lesson
Starter:
I usually start this lesson by drawing a line the length of the white board. I then draw a bracket that encompasses the whole line minus 1/16th of an inch. I explain that today we are going to be coving everything within the bracket.
Lesson:
For this lesson, I have a slideshow that contains all of the videos and images that I show. You can download it here: Physical Geography of Utah
I have the students follow along with guided notes. Here is an example of the guided notes I use: Guided Notes