*Click to open and customize your own copy of the Latitude and Longitude Lesson Plan.
Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
Ask students:
- How might you describe your location on Earth?
- What tools might you use to navigate to a new place?
Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE
- Read the description on the Latitude and Longitude topic page.
- Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding.
- Have students read one of the following Related Reading articles: “Real Life” or “Way Back When”. Partner them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.
Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS
Students take the Latitude and Longitude Challenge and Quiz, applying essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.
Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND
Students express what they learned about latitude and longitude while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.
- Make-a-Movie: Make a tutorial that answers this question: How can you use minutes and seconds to determine coordinates of latitude and longitude?
- Make-a-Map: Make a concept map identifying the steps to find an exact location on a map using latitude and longitude.
- Creative Coding: Code a learning game challenging players to sort lines of latitude and longitude.
More to Explore
Related BrainPOP Topics: Deepen understanding of geography applications with these topics: Map Skills and Map Projections.
Teacher Support Resources:
