BY: Judith Allee, Cloverdale Elementary School, Cloverdale, IN; 6/15/1997

PURPOSE: This lesson is to help students investigate weather and its effect on the environment and settlement of various areas.

GRADE LEVELS: 4-6

GEOGRAPHY STANDARDS:

• #1 How to use maps and other graphic representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process and report information from a spatial prospective.
• #2 How to use mental maps to organize information about people, places, and environments on the earth’s surface.
• #4 The physical and human characteristics of places.
• #15 How physical systems effect human systems.

MATERIALS REQUIRED: pencils, graph paper, maps, computer, poster board

OBJECTIVES: Upon completion of this activity, students should be able to:

• 1. use internet to access information on weather and population,
• 2. analyze and graph weather data from different cities,
• 3. compare data collected, and
• 4. explain how weather patterns effect population density.

PROCEDURES:

• 1. Pupils will choose tow diverse cities.
• 2. They will collect data on weather for one month and construct a graph on temperature and precipitation.
• 3. Pupils will collect population data of said cities.
• 4. Pupils will graph population data collected.
• 5. Pupils will plot population data on large map using push pins.
• 6. Pupils will hypothesize the effect of weather on the population growth of an area.
• 7. Pupils will predict if weather will continue to influence settlement trends of if technology will intercede.

EVALUATION: Student presentation, class discussion

EXTENSIONS: Pupils will write to the Chamber of Commerce of each city and send a copy of their project.

RESOURCES: http://www.weather.com/weather/US/cities/IN_Indianapolishtml