T A B L E 1 1 . 5
Learning Cycle
Latitude and Longitude
Grade Level: Middle school
NCSS Standards: People, Places, and Environments; The World in Spatial Terms
Exploratory Introduction
Materials: Two cards with information about specific cities or vacation sites for each small group of three
students (each group should have different cities or sites on its cards); maps and atlases
Objectives
Procedures
Assessments
Given questions about
places to eat lunch at a
mall, students explain
the difference between
seeking a specific site
or a general site.
Present the following puzzle to the students:
“Imagine that you have been shopping at a
large mall and that you are hungry and start
to think about eating a hamburger. Your
friend suggests going to the food court
because she wants a slice of pizza. Will going
to the food court meet your want for a
hamburger? How would you respond to your
friends’ suggestion?” Ask: Why do you think
the owners of malls include food courts in
their plans? Would a restaurant owner want
to locate in a mall with a food court? Is there
any time when you would definitely not want
to go to the food court for lunch?”
Students respond with
logical suggestions and
explain that, when a
person has specific
wants, he or she must go
to a place that can fill
those specific wants.
Ask: “Can you think of other examples of
times when specific locations rather than
general locations are the place to go?”
Given a city or vacation
site to visit, students
try to describe its
location to classmates
so they can locate the
mystery place.
Divide the class into groups of three and
provide them with information about a
particular city or vacation site. Without
naming the place, students try to develop
clues that enable their classmates to
determine the site.
Students make an effort
to describe city locations
and try to guess the
cities described. Students
say that they need a way
to find the exact location
of a place.
Have the class establish a number of tries the
class has for each clue. Then have groups
present their clues and have students try to
determine the locations.
Students try to locate the
places in the clues.
Ask: “Why was it hard to determine these
locations?”
Students discuss the
difficulties of finding the
places from the clues