SCHOOL NEIGHBORHOOD WALKING TOUR

Overview:

The purpose of this lesson is to allow students to look at a neighborhood and see what connects us and what divides us.

Objectives:

Students will be able to list specific boundaries in their school neighborhood and understand their possible purpose.

Grade Level: 7-8

Time: 9 days, 50 minute period

Subjects: Geography

Required Materials

Heavy cardboard (Box side) and a spring loaded clothes pin, blank Neighborhood Field Trip guide Sheet

Prerequisites:

Knowledge of scale. Use of color and symbols in maps.

Optional Technologies:

Suggested Procedure (Pedagogy):

Opening: Day 1. The teacher should go over the Neighborhood Field Trip Guide (transparency). Allow for questions and answers. Go over vocabulary. Include rules for the trip. Students must stay on sidewalks.

Development: Day 2. Students will take a walking field trip of the school neighborhood and fill out blank Neighborhood Field Trip Guide Sheet. They will also make a sketch of an area and be able to describe to the class what they see as connections and boundaries.

Day 3 & 4. The following day students will compare notes in small groups and answer the discussion sheet. A group presentation to the class will follow along with the sketch presentations to illustrate points. Comments from the presentations will be recorded by the teacher on butcher paper.

Day 5. Students will answer questions about their own neighborhood on the Viewing your Own Neighborhood sheet using their own mental maps. Volunteers will be asked to comment on the strengths of their neighborhood.

Closing: Day 6 & 7. An oversized map will be created by the small group. This map must show a healthy sustainable neighborhood. The teacher will go over the instructions sheet for the project (Create a Neighborhood) on the overhead.

Day 8 & 9. Maps will be presented to the class with feedback coming from the teacher and students.

Differentiation: Peer grouping.

Student Activity---Online

Suggested Assessment: All presentations and activity sheets will be formative assessments. The summative assessment will be the Create a Neighborhood Activity and presentation.

Resource Bar

Definitions: Decorative, Demarcation, Wind Break, Privacy, Hedges, sustain

Standards: Current issue analysis. People and Cultures.

Web Links for teaches and students

Discussion Questions. What makes a neighborhood sustainable.

Extension Activities: Slides of Neighborhoods and assets to neighborhoods.

Neighborhood Field Trip Guide Sheet.

Key – Side 1.

Name __________________________

Fence Types:

1. Pickett

2. Chain Link

3. Split Rail

4. Privacy

Purpose:

1. Decorative, line of demarcation.

2. Security, Keep people or animals in or out.

3. Line of demarcation, decorative.

4. Privacy, security, sound block, line of demarcation, Keep animal or people in or out.

Vegetation Borders:

1. Gardens

2. Trees

3. Hedges

Purpose:

1. Decorative, line of demarcation.

2. Decorative, Line of demarcation,

wind break, sound break, privacy.

3. Privacy, decorative, line of demarcation, wind break.

Neighborhood Field Trip Guide Sheet.

Key – Side 2.

Neighborhood connection:

1. Sidewalks

2. Alleys

3. Walkways (paths)

4. Roads

Purpose:

1. Allows easy walking from home to home and the neighborhood..

2. Allows access to the garage and pickup of garbage. (City)

3. Allow easy access to the home from the garage or between houses.

4. Allows faster access for people using motorized or wheel aided transportation.

Institutional connections:

1. Schools

2. Churches

3. Restaurants

4. Shopping districts

5. Community centers.

6. Parks & Playgrounds

Purpose:

1. Education, training, recreation and socialization.

2. Allows people with similar theology to meet and share. Sense of community.

3. Allow people to eat and socialize.

4. Provides opportunities for work, recreation and the acquisition of goods and services.

5. Provides services for people of all ages.

6. Athletics, socializing and recreation.

Neighborhood Field Trip Guide Sheet.

Student Copy – Side 1.

Name __________________________

Fence Types:

1. Pickett

2. Chain Link

3. Split Rail

4. Privacy

Purpose:

Vegetation Borders:

1. Gardens

2. Trees

3. Hedges

Purpose:

1. _________________________

___________________________

2._________________________

___________________________

3. ________________________

__________________________

Neighborhood Field Trip Guide Sheet.

Student Copy – Side 2.

Neighborhood connection:

1. Sidewalks

2. Alleys

3. Walkways (paths)

4. Roads

Purpose:

Institutional connections:

1. Schools

2. Churches

3. Restaurants

4. Shopping districts

5. Community centers.

6. Parks & Playgrounds

Purpose:

Neighborhood Field Trip Discussion Sheet.

Small Group Activity

Name ____________________________

Answer the following questions as a group. Assign questions to group members to be presented to the whole class. Each member must answer at least one question.

1. Name four functions of fences. A. ____________________________

B. __________________________. C. ____________________________

D. ___________________________. What’s your favorite and why?

2. Do all fences divide people? __________________

Explain. _____________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________.

3. Name four things that connect this neighborhood. A. ______________

B. ___________________________. C. __________________________

D. ____________________________.

4. Name three things that help make this neighborhood strong.

A. _______________________________ B. _______________________

C. ________________________________.

5. Name one thing that hurts this neighborhood. A. ___________________

6. Name one thing you would change in this neighborhood to make it

stronger. ________________________ Why? ________________

____________________________________________________________.

7. Can this neighborhood sustain itself for the future? ________________

Why? ______________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________.

Why should you care?

Viewing your own Neighborhood.

Student Copy – Side 1.

Name __________________________ Four block area.

Fence Types:

1. Pickett

2. Chain Link

3. Split Rail

4. Privacy

How many.

Vegetation Borders:

1. Gardens

2. Trees as borders only

3. Hedges

How many.

1. _________________________

___________________________

2._________________________

___________________________

3. ________________________

__________________________

Viewing your own Neighborhood.

Student Copy – Side 1.

Neighborhood connection:

1. Sidewalks- Condition of.

2. Alleys – Condition of.

3. Walkways (paths) What are they made of?

4. Roads – 2 intersections. Are they busy?

Purpose:

Institutional connections:

1. Schools

2. Churches

3. Restaurants

4. Shopping districts

5. Community centers.

6. Parks & Playgrounds

Name them within one mile.

Create Your Own Neighborhood.

Summative Assessment.

Team Members: _______________________ ______________________

__________________________ ______________________________

The goal of this map:

1. Create a realistic neighborhood that is vibrant and sustainable. Use everything we have created or observed. in this unit to help you with this task. (Field Trip guides)

2. Create a key so that people can read the map objectively.

3. Use colors and symbols to make the map easy to read.

4. A scale must be inserted and used.

5. North, South, East, West must be cited.

6. Include residential housing: Public assistance, apartments, townhouses, condos, single family dwellings. Your key should reflect the different type of housing.

7. In your presentation to the class you must say why you think this neighborhood is sustainable.

Credits

Jeff Linden

This lesson was produced during the Eisenhower Professional Development Geography Summer Institute, 2002, Macalester College, Saint Paul, Minnesota USA. Also funded in part by the Minnesota Alliance for Geographic Education.