Kyle Yamnitz

Which Continent is next?

Grade Level: 3-5

Length: 2 Class Periods

Materials:

Index cards, encyclopedias, online encyclopedias, and other reference
materials.

Performance Expectation:

Students’ awareness of basic geographic and demographic data
will increase and students will learn the ordering of continents
based upon certain criteria.

Directions:

Lead a brief review of the continents with the students, writing
the names of the continents on the board in alphabetical order.
Ask how they were ordered and follow this by requesting other
ways that the list could be ordered, recording them on the board.

Now ask students to predict the order of the continents in terms
of total land area. Allow each student to represent a continent
and to order themselves by area. After they get in order, provide
them with index cards with the actual areas on them and ask them
to rearrange themselves.

Repeat this process for other categories such as population,
population density, annual growth, etc. The actual statistics
for these criteria can be found in Grolier’s New Electronic Encyclopedia
and other similar CD-ROM resources, not to mention internet resources
and atlases or almanacs.

Adaptations:

To make the project more meaningful, allow students to research
the criteria describe above on their own to come up with their
own hierarchies of continents.

For more advanced students, ask them to convert their answers
for total land area, etc. to percentages of total global land
area, etc.

If time permits, allow students to predict what may happen to
these numbers and rankings in 10 and 100 years in the future.

Assessment:

No assessment is really needed for this activity, but a quiz
could be given asking students to order the continents by some
of the criteria learned in class.

References:

Condry, Chuck. "gopher://ericir.syr.edu:70/00/Lesson/Subject/SocialStudies/cecsst.125."

ERIC

. gopher://ericir.syr.edu:70/00/Lesson/Subject/SocialStudies/cecsst.125
(20, Sept. 1996).