Content Area: Social Studies

 

Index: 6.6A Grade 8 CPI 7

 

Standard: 6.6 - Geography

 

Strand: A -  World in Spatial Terms

 

Cumulative Progress Indicator: 7 - The student will explain the distribution of major human and physical features at country and global scales.

 

Grade: 8

 

Sample Activities:

 

·        In the early grades, students should have mastered identifications of the continents and oceans on a blank map of the world. In this activity, older students repeat this identification exercise from memory and then use an atlas to add the major ocean currents, wind patterns, seas, straits, canals, and peninsulas. It is important that students not only identify the major straits but also understand why the straits are important in world commerce. For example, the strait of Hormuz controls access to the Persian Gulf; the Dardanelles and the Bosporus (critical sites during the Cold War) control access to the Mediterranean from the Black Sea; the Strait of Malacca connects the Indian and Pacific oceans. Russia and the United States are separated by the Bering Strait, which borders western Alaska. Students also identify and locate major canals such as the Erie, Panama, Suez, and Volga-Don canals and those that are a part of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence system. They identify the history of the canal and its importance to world trade and transportation.