6th Grade Syllabus and Tentative Schedule

Course Syllabus and Outline

Regions and People

Course Description

Geography Alive! Regions and People creatively challenges students to use the tools of geography to view, analyze, and understand the world around them. The seven mapping labs and the program's case-study approach turn students into geographic thinkers.

Goals

Our overarching course goals throughout the year will be to:

1) Demonstrate knowledge of the world through the disciplines of history, economics, political science and geography.

2) Use oral and written communication to inquire, gather and interpret data, form hypotheses, draw conclusions, make inferences, and support generalizations on issues drawn from historical and contemporary sources.

3) Demonstrate an overall understanding of the course objectives and state standards by passing bi-quarterly assessments.

4) Demonstrate a historical perspective in order to construct a meaningful understanding of the diverse cultural heritage of our world in order to make significant judgments regarding the world around us.

5) Participate in inquiry, decision making and public discourse to better understand the complex problems that affect our society and the world. You will then be asked to make thoughtful and informed decisions regarding the status quo, deliberate and resolve cultural, political, economic, and societal issues of enduring importance.

Goals

Our specific course goals throughout for each marking period are as follows:

Quarter 1: Introduction to the tools of geography, seeing the world as a geographer, and the geography of the United States and Canada.

Guiding Questions:

1.) How do geographers show information on maps?

2.) Why do geographers use a variety of maps to represent the world?

Grade Level Content Expectations (GLCS)

1.) I can describe the relationships between people, places, and environments by using information that is in a geographic (spatial) context. I can engage in mapping and analyzing the information to explain the patterns and relationships they reveal both between and among people, their cultures, and the natural environment. I can identify and access information, evaluate it using criteria based on concepts and themes, and use geography in problem solving and decision making.

2.) I can explain and use key conceptual devices (places and regions, spatial patterns and processes) that geographers use to organize information and inform their study of the world.

3.) I can describe the cultural groups and diversities among people that are rooted in particular places and in human constructs called regions. I can analyze the physical and human characteristics of places and regions.

Quarter 2: Canada, the Great Lakes, Consumption Patterns in the United States, Latin America, Mexico City, and the Amazon Rainforest.

Guiding Questions:

1.) How does where you live influence how you live?

2.) How can people best use and protect Earth’s freshwater ecosystems?

3.) How do American consumption patterns affect people and the planet?

4.) Why does spatial inequality exist in urban areas?

5.) How should the resources of the rainforest be used and preserved?

GLCS

1.) I can describe the physical processes that shape the Earth’s surface which, along with plants and animals, are the basis for both sustaining and modifying ecosystems. I can Identify and analyze the patterns and characteristics of the major ecosystems on Earth.

2.) I can explain that human activities may be seen on the Earth’s surface.

3.) I can explain that the physical environment is modified by human activities, which are influenced by the ways in which human society’s value and use the Earth’s natural resources, and by the Earth’s physical features and processes. I can explain how human action modifies the physical and human characteristics of places and regions.

Quarter 3: Europe and Russia, Supranational Cooperation in the European Union, Success of the Soviet States, Life in the Sahara, and women’s role in the development of Africa.

Guiding Questions:

1.) What forces work for and against supranational cooperation among nations?

2.) What factors contribute to the success or failure of new nation states?

3.) How do people adapt to living in a desert region?

4.) How are women micro-entrepreneurs in developing countries changing their communities?

GLCS:

1.) I can describe the physical processes that shape the Earth’s surface which along with plants and animals, are the basis for both sustaining and modifying ecosystems. I can identify and analyze the patterns and characteristics of the major ecosystems on Earth.

2.) I can explain that human activities may be seen on the Earth’s surface. Human systems include the way people divide the land, decide where to live, develop communities that are part of the larger cultural mosaic, and engage in the cultural diffusion of ideas and products within and among groups.

3.) I can explain that the physical environment is modified by human activities, which are influenced by the ways in which human society’s value and use the Earth’s natural resources, and by the Earth’s physical features and processes. I can explain how human action modifies the physical systems affect human systems.

4.) I can describe the market economy in terms of the relevance of limited resources, how individuals and institutions make and evaluate decisions, the role of incentives, how buyers and sellers interact to create markets, how markets allocate resources, and the economic role of government in a market economy.

Quarter 4: Asia, Oil, India’s Comparative Advantage, China and Japan’s population, Globalization, and Antarctica.

Guiding Questions:

1.) How might having a valuable natural resource affect a region?

2.) What factors give some countries a comparative advantage in the global IT revolution?

3.) How does a country meet the challenges created by a large and growing population?

4.) How does population density affect the way people live?

5.) What is globalization and how does it affect people and places?

6.) How might global warming affect the environment in the world’s coldest place?

GLCS:

1.) I can describe the physical processes that shape the Earth’s surface which along with plants and animals, are the basis for both sustaining and modifying ecosystems. I can identify and analyze the patterns and characteristics of the major ecosystems on Earth.

2.) I can explain that human activities may be seen on the Earth’s surface. Human systems include the way people divide the land, decide where to live, develop communities that are part of the larger cultural mosaic, and engage in the cultural diffusion of ideas and products within and among groups.

3.) I can explain that the physical environment is modified by human activities, which are influenced by the ways in which human society’s value and use the Earth’s natural resources, and by the Earth’s physical features and processes. I can explain how human action modifies the physical systems affect human systems.

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