Content Area: Social Studies

 

Index: 6.6B Grade 8 CPI 1

 

Standard: 6.6 - Geography

 

Strand: B -  Places and Regions

 

Cumulative Progress Indicator: 1 - The student will compare and contrast the physical and human characteristics of places in regions in New Jersey, the United States, and the world.

 

Grade: 8

 

Sample Activities:

 

·        Students who study American Colonial History at any level need to understand the geographic concept of portages and their relationship to the control of land. While students look at a map of the French Colonial Empire in North America, they try to figure out how the French were able to control this vast empire that extended from New Orleans to French Canada with only a few troops. To help answer the question, they use another map and identify the sites of the major battles of the French and Indian War. Ask other questions such as the following: What do the sites of the major land battles have in common? Why were battles fought there? Why were the forts located there? How many battles were fought at the mouths of rivers? How many were fought at portages? (A portage is a land route connecting two bodies of water.) Look at the battles of the Revolutionary War and notice their location. Are any of them portages? Examine the geographic importance of New Orleans or Saratoga.

 

·        Using contemporary maps of America, students look for cities that are located at portages or at the mouths of rivers. Ask: Why are Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Detroit important cities? Why did Boston, our first major port, lose out as a center of commerce to Philadelphia, Baltimore, and now New York? Why has New Orleans always been a critical location during the early French and Indian War, Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and Civil War?