Extensions and Enrichment

1. Ask the local town/city hall for maps or aerial photos of the student's community. Reproduce the maps and have students locate their homes, familiar sites (schools, shops, etc.) and find the pathways that connect the locations.

2. If possible, compare present day and older maps. What roads have changed and how have they changed? (Have some roads disappeared/ Are there any new roads? If so, why do you think that were built where they are?)

3. Have students interview older members of the community to talk about changes they have seen in the local roads or pathways. Write a report about these changes.

4. Find out, through research, if any present day roads in your state began as pathways of American Indians and/or stagecoach roads. Trace the routes on state maps.

5. Finding the best route to a destination, by reading the landscape, and making a group map.

• Write the following physical features on the chalkboard: mountains, lake, forest, two rivers. Tell the students that they will be drawing a map that will contain these physical features. Ask students to identify which feature is a natural pathway.
• Distribute large pieces of paper and have the students start by making a legend with symbols for roads, houses, rivers, mountains, lakes, trees, include a compass rose and a scale on the map. Talk with the students about scale and determine with the class how many kilometers one centimeter will equal. Have the students use that scale on their maps and have them write at the bottom of the legend: one centimeter = ______ kilometers.
• Have the students use the symbols to place a river, a mountain, a lake, and a forest on the map.
• Tell students that they are to consider the landscape and decide where their roads and houses will be placed. Have students draw their houses on the map and connect their houses with human made pathways....two or more roads. Talk about the importance of "reading the landscape" to decide where to locate the roads. Will the roads go over the mountain, across the river, through the forest?
• Have students measure distances to different locations using the scale on the map. How far is it from each student's house to the other houses? To the river? To the lake?
• Have students share their maps with the class by locating their houses using cardinal directions and describing how the physical features determined the location of the houses

Have you used this investigation?
How did you extend this investigation? Share your enrichment ideas with other teachers! Email your suggestions to Sarah Bednarz.