Latitude and Longitude Lesson Plan: Geography and Migration

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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 BACKGROUND

• 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: ENGAGE

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? (Essential Literacy Skill: Determine central ideas)
• Make-a-Map: Make a concept map identifying the steps to find an exact location on a map using latitude and longitude. (Essential Literacy Skill: Summarize key details)
• Creative Coding: Code a learning game challenging players to sort lines of latitude and longitude. (Essential Literacy Skill: Make logical inferences from explicit details)

Step 4: APPLY & ASSESS 

Apply: Students take the Latitude and Longitude Challenge, applying essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Assess: Wrap up the lesson with the Latitude and Longitude Quiz. 

Step 5:  EXTEND LEARNING

Related BrainPOP Topics: Deepen understanding of geography applications with these topics: Map Skills and Map Projections. 

Additional Support Resources:

• Pause Point Overview: Video tutorial showing how Pause Points actively engage students to stop, think, and express ideas. 
• Modifications for BrainPOP Learning Activities: Strategies to meet ELL and other instructional and student needs.
• BrainPOP Learning Activities Support: Resources for best practices using BrainPOP.