Teaching Materials

Top 10 Geography Teaching Tips
(in no particular order)

10. Talk with students about changing nations in eastern europe. For example, a house in northeast hungary was part of slovakia, czech, ukraine, and austria-hungary. Siblings born in the same house between 1915-1945 are of different nationalities.

9. As a government teacher, I discuss in my crime unit how different states would react to crime and where you would go to plot that out or to get a fair trial.

8. Tape the name of a country or capital onto each student when they come into the classroom. Once they've matched the country and capital, the students then become a working pair. They have two minutes to find a pair for a neighboring country. These four then become a group to work on that day's class assignment.

7. Examine the effects (environmental, geographic, etc. ) of hydro quebec on the land and people as a way to foresee or avoid some of the problems for hydro china. Focus on other large public works projects around the world.

6. After students can pronounce state capitals and fill in an outline map,they can advance to a puzzle, and then a computer generated quiz.

5. Monthly world map tests. Score based on improvements from the previous month. From 25 items to 100% on final exam. Students graph their monthly score.

4. Compare current maps of the local area with historic maps to note changes.

3. When teaching 8th grade, WWI and WWII especially, I have students look at the effects of geography and climate on battle outcomes.

2. We plotted on specific maps all the summer vacation trips kids took by state (NY), us, and world.

1. Why and how would geography determine how slavery in the north was different from slavery n the south.