Introduction l Learners l Standards l Process l Resources
Introduction
Journeying across the world can appear to be a very daunting task for many young children. However, through utilizing National Geographic, Google Earth, and a little imagination, you can take your students across the world in a blink of an eye! In turn, by utilizing the "Glorious Global World" web quest activity, students are encouraged to explore different geographic landforms from all around the world, while discovering that these landforms actually have a lot in common with the landforms they see everyday around their homes. Overall, this discovery lesson not only takes students on an incredible journey, but most importantly, encourages them to see how the world is far more interconnected than they may have realized, as well as is a lot smaller than they thought! Standards
Process This web quest is a wonderful activity to conduct in the classroom, especially for third graders who are eager to explore the geography of the world! Therefore, in order to introduce this web quest as the teacher, begin by giving your students a "thought experiment" for about fifteen minutes to think about and research the terms "geography" and "global connections". In turn, after you feel your students understand these terms, encourage them to begin the Google Earth scavenger hunt, which should last another two hours. Finally, once you are ready to give your students the authentic assessment, plan for about thirty to forty five minutes of exploration, and encourage your students to complete the "landscape layout" drawing. Overall, even though the entire web quest activity should take about three hours, this doesn't mean that the journey stops at the end of this lesson, but rather, students will take what they learned and continue to unearth new and wonderful discoveries for the rest of their lives! |
Learners
The "Glorious Global World" activity can be an extremely exciting experience for students, especially if they are given the chance to freely explore and journey across the planet that they call home. Therefore, in order to implement this lesson, students should first be allowed to freely experiment and explore in Google Earth independently, and then come together as a class for the actual scavenger hunt assignment. In fact, throughout the lesson, the educator can help walk students through the steps on how to use Google Earth, but should also allow them to explore the National Geographic website provided, and of course, their own imaginations. Overall, this lesson should be designed with the entire class in mind as a longer activity that should take a few hours to fully implement, including the exploration, assignment, and authentic assessment at the end of the lesson. |