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The Big Idea Activity

How does geography affect communities?

Create a Poem About a Place

  California Standard 3.1 Students describe the physical and human geography and use maps, tables, graphs, photographs, and charts to organize information about people, places, and environments in a spatial context. California Standard 3.1.1 Identify geographical features in their local region (e.g., deserts, mountains, valleys, hills, coastal areas, oceans, lakes).

Teaching Tips

Students may choose to write about one of California's state parks or about a region of California for their poem.

Additional Links

You can explore over 270 state parks through the California State Parks and California State Parks Foundation Web sites.

California State Parks Foundation

California's Regions

California's Landscapes

Mount Whitney


Grafton Tyler Brown

  California Standard 3.1 Students describe the physical and human geography and use maps, tables, graphs, photographs, and charts to organize information about people, places, and environments in a spatial context.

Grafton Brown


Teaching Tips

Explain to students that the American West attracted a huge number of settlers. Many artists sought to capture both the reality and the myth of the western frontier.

Additional Links

Visit these Web sites for more information about who Grafton Tyler Brown was and the importance of his artistic contributions.

Paintings of the American West

Artists of the American West

Biography of Grafton Tyler Brown

Exhibit Notes from Tyler exhibit

Redwood National Park

  California Standard 3.1.1 Identify geographical features in their local region (e.g., deserts, mountains, valleys, hills, coastal areas, oceans, lakes).

Field Trip

Teaching Tips

You may want to explain to students that American Indians lived in the territory that is now the Redwood National Park.

Learn About Your Community

  California Standard 3.1 Students describe the physical and human geography and use maps, tables, graphs, photographs, and charts to organize information about people, places, and environments in a spatial context.

Local Connection

Teaching Tips

Caution students never to enter their address at the computer without an adult present. Students should search only using their zipcode when exploring with terraserver.

Additional Links

Aerial Views of California

Your Community's Land and Resources

  California Standard 3.1.1 Identify geographical features in their local region (e.g., deserts, mountains, valleys, hills, coastal areas, oceans, lakes). California Standard 3.1.2 Trace the ways in which people have used the resources of the local region and modified the physical environment (e.g., a dam constructed upstream changed a river or coastline).

Local Connection

Teaching Tips

Student may enjoy researching other regions after they explore the resources and geography of their own region.

Additional Links

Students may wish to find out more about particular agricultural resources.

Grapes

Avocadoes