Mr.

Jonathan Maiorano
Mr. Robert Funes

World History and Cultures

Daily Lesson Plan: 08/19/15

I. Order of Activities:
a. Bell Work: Using Latitude and Longitudinal Map, describe where is San
Antonio, Texas?
b. Review Thucydides and Note-Taking Techniques
c. Introduction to Geography as part of a Historians tool-box.
d. Introduce Major Geographical Terms
e. Review and highlight the importance good habits
II. Key Understandings:
a. How maps aid historical understanding
b. Geography is the study of the earths landscape, peoples, places, and their
environment
c. How the Battle of Thermopylae highlights geographical constraints
d. Major geographical terms such as Relative Position vs Absolute Position,
Latitude, Longitude, Equator, Meridian, Degrees, and the North and South
Pole.
e. How perspective changes the view of the globe, but globe maps all
represents the same thing.
III. Lesson Content:
a. Mission: To answer the following questions:
i. What is Geography?
ii. Where is San Antonio, Texas?
iii. What do maps of the world look like?
b. Geography is the study of the earths landscape, peoples, places, and
their environment.
i. Where is San Antonio? Where is Great Hearts Northern Oaks?
1. In each of these examples, ask students to explain the
following: Why did you write what you wrote? Are there
other ways of describing how to get from one location to
the other?
2. In their answers, begin to introduce the ideas of relative
position: relative position is the use of common landmarks,
or other objects that are relatively close to the desired
location.
ii. Notes: relative position is the use of common landmarks, or
other known objects that are relatively close to the desired
location / or describing where a place is by describing the
places near it.
c. Make claim that you have an absolute answer to the location of San
Antonio: Absolute Location: 29.4167 degree North, 98.5000 degrees
West. This answer is indisputable!
d. Use board to help students draw compass: North South, East West.
i. Introduce concept of Absolute Position:
ii. Notes: Absolute position describes a places exact address or
Geographic Address using latitude and longitude. The Equator

Mr. Jonathan Maiorano

Mr. Robert Funes

iii.

iv.
v.
vi.

vii.

World History and Cultures

Daily Lesson Plan: 08/19/15

and the Prime Meridian gives us a constant position of

reference.
Break down this definition further:
1. Latitude: East-West lines that circle around the globe.
AKA. Parallels
2. Longitude: North-South lines that wrap around the
globe aka meridians.
Do these definitions help us? Can we understand where San
Antonio is? What would we need??
A universal or absolute point of reference for both latitude and
longitude
Use MAP of the WORLD to show Equator, Prime Meridian, North
Pole and South Pole:
1. Equator: line that divides the middle of the globe into north
and south hemispheres 0 degrees latitude
a. Above equator is North, below equator is south
2. Prime Meridian: runs through Greenwich, England that
divides globe into East and West hemisphere 0 degrees
longitude
a. To the right of Prime Meridian is East, to the Left is
West.
Key Parts to a Map
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

o Compass Rose model of a compass that tells us the

Cardinal directions which are North, South, East, and West
o Title and Subject Tells us what region the map covers
and also what information the map highlights
o Distance scale indicates how far to go to get to a
destination scale tells you the one inch on a map
represents a particular distance on the land
o Key (Legend)- symbols for features such as national and
state parks, various types of roads, sizes of towns, and
cities:
o Grid: parallels and meridians

e. Lets look at different maps of the world, and see if absolute position
works here too!
i. Use the different projections of the globe
ii. Mercator, Interrupted, Equal Area, Peters, Robinson, and with
center as Pacific Ocean.
1. Use Resources found in Geography textbook and maps
from online.
iii. Q/A. How or why does these different ways of depicting the globe
have the same absolute position?
1. Notes: no matter the depiction, all maps must take the
Latitude Longitude Grid seriously for their map to have any
kind of legitimacy.
IV. Lesson Process:
a. Teacher-led Q/A

Mr. Jonathan Maiorano

Mr. Robert Funes

World History and Cultures

Daily Lesson Plan: 08/19/15

b. Teacher-led Demonstration
V. Lesson Application:
a. Student use their knowledge to find the absolute locations of certain
positions.
VI. Resources:
Latitude and Longitude Map of San Antonio
Prentice Hall World Explorer Geography Tools and Concepts- 2001 (Jons Geography
Textbook