Geography for Life

National Geography Standards 1994 (Gr. K-4)

The physical environment is modified by human activities, largely as a consequence of the ways in which human societites value and use Earth’s natural resources, and human activities are also influenced by Earth’s physical features and processes.

The geographically informed person knows and understands...

1. How people depend on the physical environment

2. how people modify the physical environment

3. That the physical environment can both accommodate and be endangered by human activities

Prepare an illustrated chart to show how the atmosphere, biosphere, lithosphere, and hydrosphere contribute to the student’s daily life

Make a list of things that people need, want, and obtain from the physical environment (e.g., food, clean air, water, and mineral resources) and identify those obtained from the physical environment in the student’s community, region state, and from other countries

Write an account comparing how people in the local community and people else where in the state depend on the physical environment

List examples of changes in land use in the local community (e.g., changing from open land to farmland, from one type of farming to another, from farms to houses and stores, from factories and other industrial uses to abandonment)

Use maps and graphs to illustrate changes in the physical environment of the local community or region brought about by processes such as urban growth, the development of transportation and agriculture, and the introduction of new species of plants and animals

Prepare an illustrated booklet that shows how and why people alter the physical environment (e.g., by creating irrigation projects, clearing the land to make room for houses and shopping centers, planting crops, building roads)

Develop a chart that compares the plants and animal that used to be found in the local community with those now found there and suggest reasons for any changes (e.g.,., changes in climate, air pollution, water pollution, expanding human settlement)

Write and account that gives examples of how human activities have increased the ability of the physical environment to support human life in the local community, state, US., and other countries (e.g., use of irrigation and dry-land farming techniques to improve crop yields, reforestation to prevent erosion, flood-control projects to make land habitable)

Identify examples in the local community of ways in which the physical environment is stressed by human activities

By the end of the fourth grade, the student knows and understands:

1. How variations within the physical environment produce spatial patterns that affect human adaptation

2. The ways in which the physical environment provides opportunities for people

3. The ways in which the physical environment constrains human activities

List ways in which people adapt to the physical environment (e.g., choices of clothing, housing styles, agricultural practices, recreational activities, food, daily and seasonal patterns of life)

Describe and compare the traditional ways of life of different groups of Native Americans who lived in the student’s community, region, or state to draw conclusions about how they adapted to the natural resources available (e.g., dependence of Plains people on bison, dependence of Iroquois on crops produced by fertile soil of the Great Lakes region, dependence on fishing of people in the Northeast and Pacific Northwest)

Use pictures of housing in the student’s community, region, or in other parts of the US at different periods of time to describe how the physical environment can influence the choice of building material and style of construction, and how people adapt building styles to the availability of building materials (e.g., sod houses in the Great Plains, dugouts in early Texas settlements, log cabins in wooded areas of the eastern US)

Describe how the student’s community benefits from the physical environment (e.g., people make their living by farming on fertile land, fishing in local water, in working in mines; the community is a port located on a natural harbor, a tourist center located in a scenic or historic area, or an industrial center with god access to natural resources)

Evaluate the effects of weather and climate (temperature range, distribution of rainfall, length of growing season, periods of storms, and hours of sunshine) on agricultural activities, types of housing, fuel consumption, and other activities in the student’s community and state

Describe the characteristics of the community’s physical environment that first attracted settlers, and the opportunities that the environment offers today to reach conclusions about how people’s views of the environment can change with changes in technology and culture

Describe how the physical environment constrains activities in the student’s community, region, and state on a daily, seasonal. and permanent basis (e.g., the effects of weather and climate on agriculture, recreational activities, availability of water, expansion of settlement)

Describe the characteristics of climates in different regions of the world and how they affect the lives of people who live there (e.g., how people are affected by living in an area of permafrost, in an area that gets over 200 inches of rainfall a year, or in an area that gets almost no rain)

Explain how landforms can limit human activities (e.g., mountains, cliffs, and swamps impeding migration and transportation, subsurface rock being unsuitable as a building foundation, slopes being too steep for agriculture or settlement)

Define and give examples of natural hazards (e.g., floods, wind storms, tornadoes, or earthquakes) that occur in the student’s community, region, and state

Compare the natural hazards that occur in the student’s physical environment with those that occur in similar environments elsewhere in terms of their location, magnitude, frequency, and effect on people

Collect data on the occurrence of natural hazards in the student’s state and elsewhere in the US over a period to create a map entitled: Location of Types of Natural Hazards in the State/Nation from Month to Month

1. The characteristics of renewable, nonrenewable, and flow resources

2. The spatial distribution of resources

3. The role of resources in daily life

Put symbols on a base map to identify the locations of sources of nonrenewable resources (e.g., fossil fuels, minerals) and explain how each resource is used

Design and conduct a survey of students, family, and other members of the community to measure resource use in the school, home, and community on a typical day and classify the resources as renewable (e.g., timber), nonrenewable (e.g., petroleum), or flow (e.g., running water or wind)

Write a script for a documentary aimed at other students that explains the characteristics of different types of resources and where the resources come from

Describe the relationships between economic activities and resources by using maps to identify major industrial districts and the sources of iron ore, coal, and other natural resources

Describe, by using maps, major transportation routes that link resources with consumers and identify the transportation modes used (e.g., ship, pipeline, barge, or railroad)

Use historical case studies to explain how settlement patterns are influenced by the discovery and use of resources (e.g., Colorado mining towns as centers of settlement in the late nineteenth century or the growth of industry and cities along the fall line of the Appalachians starting in the eighteenth century)

Describe how and where electricity is generated for the local community, using a sketch map to show the sources of the raw materials

Identify on a base map the source locations of resources for the manufacture of items commonly used in the local community (e.g., automobiles, medicines, clothing, and food)

Write a short account comparing the resources for other regions of the world with resources used in the student’s region, with emphasis on difference in the ways in which resources are used and valued (e.g., use of wood in the US for construction compared to use of wood in the Dominican Republic for fuel)

List the advantages and disadvantages of recycling and reusing different types of materials

Write a play or poem that focuses on ways to conserve natural resources

Develop a plan to conserve a local resource, such as water or wildlife (e.g., that of a power-boat owner or a fisherman; that of a hunter or a wildlife photographer)