Unit Plan: Identifying Locations and their Development Status
World Geography and Development
9th Grade
K. Ekpenyong, Instructor
karen.ekpenyong@josephinum.org
Economic Development Unit
Plan Description
Students will use images of unidentified locations all around
the world, in addition to development data, to determine location and
development status. The goals of the following activities are to identify
clues in images that can help identify a location and broaden
the assumptions and standards used to rank locations by their development
status.
Lesson I - Assess images of a known location - Chicago
(1 class period)
1. Students observe photographs of downtown Chicago taken
in the 1920s and 1930s and verbally compare those images to what the city
currently looks like.
Chicago
Lesson II - Assess images of
foreign locations (1 class period)
1. Students observe photographs of locations outside the United States and list
clues (buildings, natural objects, man-made objects, clothing, any elements of
culture, etc.) that can be used to identify a location and its development
status.
Lesson III - Use image
analysis skills to assess images of a specific country (2 class periods)
1. Students are emailed a PowerPoint presentation
titled 'Where in the world could this be?' that contains about 8 images of one
country and some development data.
2. Students are asked to identify the country and its development status based
on the images and the data.
3. After reviewing
the PowerPoint, the students write a short essay on the clues that helped them
to identify the location and the development status of the country.
Where in the world could this be?
Lesson IV - the
Economic Development of Your Neighborhood (2 class periods)
1. Take 4 pictures of your neighborhood on different
streets (2 residential and 2 commercial)
2. Insert these images into a PowerPoint Presentation
3. Identify 4 items in the images that can be used to determine the economic
development of your neighborhood
4. State 4 items that are missing from the images which would be helpful in
determining the development status of your neighborhood
Lesson V - Comparison
(2 class periods)
1. In groups view the PowerPoint presentations and compare your assessment of
Chicago neighborhoods with the assessment of the 'unknown locations'.
2. Write a 3 paragraph essay that summarizes your assumptions, discoveries and
conclusions about assessing the development of a location.
Technology Required
Digital Camera or Camera and Scanner
Word
PowerPoint
Computer and Projector
Curriculum Standards
This unit adheres to the
Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) Standards for Geography - Social
Science State Goal 17
particularly 17A, 17B and
17C.
Learning
Standards
A. Locate,
describe and explain places, regions and features on the Earth.
17.A.4a Use mental maps of
physical features to answer complex geographic questions.
B. Analyze
and explain characteristics and interactions on the Earth's physical systems.
17.B.5 Analyze international
issues and problems using ecosystems and physical geography concepts.
C. Understand
relationships between geographic factors and society.
17.C.5a Compare resource
management methods and policies in different regions of the world.
D. Understand
the historical significance of geography.