Hill_Topic+1

**1.01: Illustrating the characteristics of South America and Europe: Create your own visual guide.**
In this lesson, students will examine the geography of South America and Europe. They will learn about this using one of the five themes of geography: place. They will learn about the physical makeup of the two continents including mountains, rivers, beaches, and topography. They will also learn about wildlife. First, I would teach a lesson about the above topic by presenting the students with pictures of major mountain ranges, waterfalls, oceans, beaches, etc. I will also explain the wildlife that is prevalent in different regions of South America and Europe. I would display these pictures on the overhead projector and pass them around if students wanted to get a better look at them. We will also look at physical maps that show the landforms in South America and Europe.

After I am done teaching the lesson/presenting the information, students will be put into groups of four or five and each group will be given a white poster board. Markers will also be provided. Each piece of poster board will have a large outline of South America or Europe on it. Some groups will be given Europe and others South America. Students will then be instructed to illustrate the map of South America or Europe by drawing in major landforms/physical characteristics. Students will also illustrate the wildlife in different regions. In order to fill out their map, each group will have access to a laptop and an encyclopedia. Guidelines will be provided on the board to help direct students what to include on their maps:
 * Oceans and bodies of water that border the continent
 * Major mountain ranges
 * Major rivers/waterfalls
 * Major beaches
 * Wildlife in 3 different regions
 * At least three of the following features: island, isthmus, volcano, cape, gulf, plateau, falls, lake, glacier

I will be able to tell if students learned the material by looking at their completed maps. The maps will be graded on group effort, correctness, and how much information/detail is on the map. Students must include what was required. This activity will take longer than one class period.


 * Note:** It may be better to only focus on one continent at a time instead of combining both South America and Europe together in the same lesson. I wasn't thinking about this at the time when I came up with this particular creative statement. Now, I would probably change the statement to focus on only one continent. I now realize that teachers usually teach a unit on South America and then a unit on Europe, etc. Perhaps this activity could be done two different times depending on what unit the class is studying at the time. Just a thought...