Down the Hall in Room 177: Mapping the North Pole

As we approached the winter break, third graders in room 177 were still hard at work on our second Interdisciplinary Unit: Interdependence. Our overarching Essential Question for this unit was "Does where you live affect how you live?" As we moved through this unit, we answered several deepening questions as we made connections between Earth Science and Geography.

In order to make our learning fun, interactive, and creative, Ms. Amstutz decided to turn our "Town Builder" activity into a "Town Builder: North Pole Edition" for the month of December. "Town Builder" is an interactive Social Studies program through which students interact with both a giant sized wall map of an imaginary town that is placed in the classroom and a matching map in an interactive notebook of their own. As we move through Social Studies topics through the year, the town changes to show how towns change through time. By doing this "Town Builder" with a North Pole theme, students could still cover the learning targets but do it in such a way that was engaging for them.

In both science and social studies, we learned about the different physical features of the Earth: land forms and bodies of water. So, on our "Town Builder" maps, we labeled the land forms. Students also learned how to locate the geographical features by using coordinates of a grid map.

Grid Map of the North Pole with land forms labeled.

By discussion how certain features of land forms or bodies of water help meet the needs of people, we were able to understand that geography influences the development of communities. To do this, students were given a blank map of the United States. We examined where the major rivers, lakes and oceans were located (blue on our maps). We also noted where mountain regions (green) and plains (red) were located. From there, we revisited what we had learned about the needs of living things in our first Interdisciplinary Unite "What Has Value?" By combining that knowledge with our new knowledge of geographical features, we considered the best places for pioneers to settle and where we thought big cities might develop. Students marked those places with a yellow dot on the map.

Examining the geographical features of the U.S. helps us to understand where
large cities would develop.

Through our "Town Builder: North Pole Edition" students revisited what they had learned in science about natural resources. We discussed what types of natural resources might be found at the North Pole and how those resources would be used to help Santa and his Elves.

Resources of the North Pole

Students colored and cut out symbols to represent the various resources and products that might be found and used at the North Pole. We discussed at which land form those resources would likely be located and we placed them on the map, transforming out map into a product map complete with map legend.

Product Map of the North Pole

Map Legend for the Product Map of the North Pole

Next, students discussed how some communities influence their environment (such as putting up dams) and others adapt their communities to fit the environment. We discussed how in our rural areas of the North Pole, we might need to put up dams to use for irrigation systems to get water to the crops (sugar, grain, and cotton). We also discussed how we might need to build a bridge across the river so that the people who lived at the North Pole could travel from North to South. Additionally, a bridge would need to be build from the mainland to the island.

Speaking of transportation, students spent some time brainstorming ways that the residents of the North Pole might travel. Our ideas are shown below:

Means of transportation at the North Pole.

We created some map symbols to show where those forms of transportation would be found on our map and placed them on our classroom "Town Builder".

Finally, we explored the three different types of communities that might be found in a town. We learned about rural, suburban, and urban. Students were given their own Elf home to color and cut out. They determined map coordinates, based on our grid map coordinates, for where they would like to locate their home. Elf homes were placed on the "Town Builder: North Pole Edition" and our communities were formed.

Town Builder: North Pole Edition complete with grid coordinates, land forms
products, transportation, and communities.

As a performance assessment, students were given the task of creating their own map of the North Pole. Given a list of directions and a set of symbols, students were to create a map of the North Pole. Maps included a map title, compass rose, and symbol labels. Students had to follow directional clues to place the symbols in correct locations. Additionally, students had to draw in 12 land forms to complete this task.