Day 36 - Pre-Test on Asia Geography

Today we had a pre-test on the geography of Asia, although my students got to "cheat" a little due to my absence last week. I was out due to my mother's funeral in Illinois.

The substitutes did a great job making sure my students didn't get too far behind our schedule. But I was hoping to give the pre-test without any discussions about the country locations. In order to keep students on pace, I gave the substitutes instructions to have students complete a political map, and give daily quizzes on 10 of the 20 countries.

We will be discussing how the geographic features of Asia (especially China, India, Vietnam, North & South Korea, Japan, and Indonesia) affect the lives of the people who live there.

What do we have to know?
Locate and Identify:

COUNTRIES
China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, North Korea, South Korea, Japan

LAND FORMS
Korean Peninsula, Gobi Desert, Taklimakan Desert, Himalayan Mountains

RIVERS
Huang He (Yellow) River, Yangtze (Chiang Jiang) River, Mekong River, Indus River, Ganges River

OTHER WATER FORMS
Sea of Japan, Yellow Sea, East China Sea, South China Sea, Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean

Why do we have to know these items?
Each item connects with one of the 8 Concepts (Conflict, Culture, Economics, Governance, Human Environment Interaction, Location, Movement, Continuity through Change) and how these concepts affect the standard of living of the people who reside there.

Tomorrow we will make connections between climates and population density.

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The content of Room 755 is the interpretation of the Georgia State Standards for 7th grade Social Studies, and how we seek to address these standards in one classroom, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the school system in which I work. This work (unless expressly stated) are licensed under a Creative Commons License Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Day 35 - Good To Be Back - (Why I was gone)

I apologize for the gap of daily posting over the past week. My mother passed away on the morning of September 21, and I received a call around lunchtime on the Friday before that I needed to get home quickly. It is a 6-hour drive to Mom's house, so I posted nothing from last Friday until today.

My substitutes did a great job. When I returned to my classes on Friday, I noticed my students' notebooks were up-to-date with their new map of Easter & Southern Asia. The students were "upset" that they had a quiz every day I was gone. I told them to get used to it, because it would now be happening at least 3 times a week. Nothing too difficult, just knowing the material we cover from day-to-day so I know they are getting the CRCT material. [NOTE: All the other things we do in class are free. :^)]

We began this week learning some geography of Asia. They have labeled political maps, and we will begin learning the locations and features of land and water forms next week.

As I told my students, one of the things I like about the direction our Standards are taking, is that we are not learning the geography just to be a good contestant on Jeopardy, but each of the features relates to at least one of the 8 Concepts we have learned, or to the Standard of Living of the people of these areas.

In our training session a few weeks ago, Dr. Cranshaw hammered home the idea of standard of living, although he never said this was a major point, when you continually come back to this focus, it must be. When he discussed how we should approach Literacy Rates of certain countries, it was not to a memorization of arbitrary percentages, but rather an understanding of the relationship of literacy to a nation's standard of living.

So, as we discuss the rivers, deserts, and mountains of Asia, our focus is not just to know the location, but also how these features affect trade, lifestyle, education, and ultimately standard of living.

I like the approach. I'll do what I can to help students make these connections and apply the principles to their own lives.

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The content of Room 755 is the interpretation of the Georgia State Standards for 7th grade Social Studies, and how we seek to address these standards in one classroom, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the school system in which I work. This work (unless expressly stated) are licensed under a Creative Commons License Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.