|
|
|
|
Content Area: Social Studies
Index: 6.6E Grade 8 CPI 5
Standard: 6.6 - Geography
Strand: E - Environment and Society
Cumulative Progress Indicator: 5 - The student will describe world, national, and local patterns of resource distribution and utilization, and discuss the political and social impact.
Grade: 8
Sample Activities:
· With the help of the library media specialist, students prepare tables and graphs of worldwide resource distribution. They answer questions such as the following: Which countries are rich in certain resources? Which ones have the oil, the gold, and the diamonds? Which ones are rich in wheat, corn, and rice? Using the data gathered, students identify potential areas of conflict. What events in recent history can be explained by conflicts between nations over resources? What wars can be seen in this light? The Gulf War?
· Present the following scenario to the students: Pretend that you are a manager of one type of resource. What factors are most important in determining how fast a natural resource is being used? If you needed to assure that you would have a supply of your resource available for a specific number of years, what information do you need to plan this supply? What guidelines might you need? How would the conservation or preservation of the environment weigh into your decision making as a manager? Throughout this activity, students identify examples of perpetual, renewable, and nonrenewable natural resources; ways in which these resources are used; the consequences of substituting one resource for another; and concerns, issues, guidelines, and planning needs that are related to the management of a natural resource. Students extend this activity by researching how natural resources are utilized in other countries and regions and how natural resources are managed, both in the United States and abroad.
· As citizens and consumers, students should be aware of the use and consumption of natural resources as well as the flow and use of energy throughout the environment. Every raw material and form of energy used to make the products they buy comes from perpetual, renewable, and/or nonrenewable natural resources. The use of these natural resources, consumerism, and global economics are closely woven together in very complex relationships. The following activity helps to simplify these relationships. Hold up a pencil and tell the students that the class will work together to determine the life cycle of the pencil, its “cradle to grave” sequence. Use this example to help them to determine similar steps. List them in a circular pattern, to represent a “cycle.” 1. Cedar tree is harvested; truck hauls tree to mill. 2. Mill prepares lumber; lumber is shipped to factory. 3. Graphite is mined, clay is collected, and gums are tapped and shipped to factory; all are used to create the “lead” of the pencil. 4. Pencils are manufactured, packaged, and boxed. 5. Trucker hauls pencils to warehouse or railroad. 6. Trucker hauls pencils to retail stores. 7. Consumer drives to store to purchase pencils. 8. Consumer uses and discards pencil stub. 9. Pencil stub is hauled to landfill or incinerator. Ask each student to identify a simple item at home that he or she would like to research for the same information (e.g., a sports item, a toy, a food item). Students identify the steps necessary to produce each finished product from natural resources as well as the steps needed to recycle it back to nature or into a new product. They draw and label the steps in a “cycle of life” diagram, like the above example. Students also draw the life cycle of the raw materials used to create the product as smaller circles attached to the large, main one. Encourage the students to learn as much as possible about the source of the raw materials, where energy is being used and what energy source is tapped, where the object is distributed, how the product is transported, who purchases and uses the product, whether the product or parts of the product can be reused or recycled, how it is disposed of, etc.
Inspiration Templates:
|
|
