Take Your Peck

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Description: Physical characteristics associated with ethnic background and cultures develop over time through a process known as natural selection. In this lesson students will explore this process through an activity that simulates the natural selection process in birds. Students will later analyze the physical characteristics of people from various countries by exploring photos from the “Photo of the Day” project from National Geographic.

 Grade level(s): Middle                 Standards: PASS, GFL             Produced By: Tiffany Neill

House Hunters: Top 5

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Description: Students will explore five of the Forbes.com “Top 10” cities to live in 2010 by analyzing non-fiction text about each city. Students will participate in a dual-phase Jigsaw activity to read and analyze the text. Students will then make claims about which city is the best city in which to live. Students will back this claim up with evidence they gain from the texts.

 Grade level(s): Middle                 Standards: PASS, GFL             Produced By: Tiffany Neill

Feeding Frenzy: A Study of Population Dynamics

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Description: Students will examine and explore the factors that impact population dynamics including limiting factors such as food, water, and shelter. Students will also examine the role engineers have in addressing limiting factors that impact carrying capacities within a population.

 Grade level(s): Middle                 Standards: PASS, GFL             Produced By: Tiffany Neill

Cultural Caravan

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Description: Students may encounter differences in cultures through the course of their lives, but they may not fully recognize how cultures develop. Some cultures share characteristics while some aspects about a culture are distinctly different. Through this lesson students will explore the processes that influence cultural characteristics. Students will also have an opportunity to explore and present cultures connected to their own families and backgrounds.

 Grade level(s): Middle                 Standards: PASS, GFL             Produced By: Tiffany Neill

South Asia: Relating Physical Systems to Population Density

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Description: The goal of this lesson is to have students to see the relationships between physical systems and population density.  They will use map skills to see relationships in India, Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

 Grade level(s): Middle                 Standards: PASS, GFL             Produced By: Teresa Potter

Tear Down This Wall

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Description: Students will learn why the Berlin Wall was erected and the impact it had on the German people as well as the powerful message the Communist government of the Soviet Union sent to the world.

 Grade level(s): Middle                 Standards: PASS, GFL             Produced By: Glenda Sullivan

Lewis and Clark: The Wonder of Geographic Exploration

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Description: In this lesson students will interpret portions of Lewis and Clark’s journal to gain a better understanding of the physical processes that shape the northwest United States. 

 Grade level(s): Middle                     Standards: PASS, GFL             Produced By: Heather Braucher

Inquiring Minds Want To Know... Oceania

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Description: Students will explore and gain an understanding of the cultural history of the Oceanic islands and the impact it had on modern society in this region.  

 Grade level(s): Middle                     Standards: PASS, GFL             Produced By: Heather Braucher

A Cultural Look at India

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Description: Students will discover and evaluate cultural life in India through fictional literature.

 Grade level(s): Middle                     Standards: PASS, GFL             Produced By: Heather Braucher

War-Torn Warsaw Rebuilt

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Description: Students will learn that, although 85% of Warsaw, Poland, was destroyed during World War II, the Polish people have rebuilt their city and have one of the fastest growing economies in Europe.

 Grade level(s): Middle                     Standards: PASS, GFL             Produced By: Glenda Sullivan

Quebec: What a Place!

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Description: Students will learn the geographic characteristics of place and develop a mental map of where this place is located while learning the characteristics of Quebec, Canada. 

 Grade level(s): Middle                     Standards: PASS, GFL, CC             Produced By: Glenda Sullivan

Mission Impossible? The Influence of Spanish Missions

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Description: Students will examine the reasons for the creation of missions by the Spanish during the early exploration of the Americas as well as analyze the effects, good and bad, of the Spanish culture upon the Native Americans.

 Grade level(s): Middle                     Standards: PASS, GFL             Produced By: Denise Aquilar

Life in a Spanish Mission: A Comparative View of Different Cultures

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Description: Students will discover the daily trials of life for all people who lived in the Spanish missions in California in the 1800s by analyzing the diary entries and accounts from a family living in Monterey, California, in 1838.  The students will compare and contrast the range of feelings among the different groups by analyzing the diary entries as well as determine the cultural influences, good and bad, that the Spanish had on the Native Americans of the time.

 Grade level(s): Middle                     Standards: PASS, GFL             Produced By: Denise Aquilar

7th Grade World Geography CRT Review

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Description: 7th Grade World Geography CRT Review from the OKAGE World Geography Academies, Session III, 2011.

 Grade level(s): Middle                     Produced By: OKAGE with permission of Shirley Starkey, Social Studies Education Coordinator

Geo-Dancing Around the World

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Description: We live in different geographic locations with special celebrations, cultural influences and traditions in history.  This lesson will help students understand the relationships of these features by using the different types of dances that are performed all around the world.  How do people dance in different parts of the world?  Why are dance traditions different?  What kind of dancing do you do?  What characteristics of specific countries determine the type of dances for that region?

 Grade level(s): Middle                 Standards: PASS, GFL             Produced By: Dianne Hill

Preserving the Past, Emerging into the Future

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Description: A brief lesson plan model to integrate local geography and history as outlined in the Oklahoma Priority Academic Student Skills (PASS) and the National Geography Standards.

Any town or city has a wealth of geography and history resources to explore past, present and future preservation.  These activities will spark an interest in and perpetuate the memories of a community by discovering its rich heritage.  This lesson will establish the “whys” of location patterns (Why is this town here?).  Many geographic questions can be answered.  Students will form generalizations and draw conclusions from data collected and compiled.

 Grade level(s): Middle                 Standards: PASS, GFL             Produced By: Diane Hill

Environmental Conflict and Cooperation

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Description: Students will view photographs to determine human and physical modifications and discover the conflict and cooperation of groups involved in making these modifications.

 Grade level(s): Middle                 Standards: PASS, GFL, CC             Produced By: Lee Ann Harrelson

South Sudan: A Tale of Two Countries

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Description: South Sudan is the world’s newest country.  It was a hard-won fight for independence that followed decades of war.  The war began with the discovery of oil and the belief that economically the country of Sudan would be able to rid itself of its Christian African inhabitants.  Years of genocide and ethnic cleansing followed leaving South Sudan with little except for its vast reserves of oil.

Grade level(s): Middle                Standards: PASS, GFL, CC           Produced By: Jayne Marley

What Can We Learn From Population Pyramids?

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Description: In this lesson, students will learn to analyze a population pyramid - a unique and interesting type of graph which shows the age and gender distribution in a given nation, state, or city

 Grade level(s): Middle                     Standards: PASS, GFL             Produced By: Janet Hall

I Am A Country - Where Is My Continent?

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Description: The purpose of this lesson is to assist students with their mental mapping. In this lesson students must place countries with the continents to which they belong.

 Grade level(s): Middle                     Standards: PASS, GFL             Produced By: Helen Chaney-Hackney