Mapping the Explorers of the World: Using ArcView 3.0 for Macintosh

Using GIS With Your 4th Grade  History and Geography Curriculum

Carole Miller, The Londonderry School, Harrisburg, PA

Introduction:  This teacher's guide will show you a way to incorporate GIS into your fourth grade or higher history and geography curriculum.  We have prepared the layers from the GIS program to meet the needs of this activity, and they are available at this site.  This activity is intended as an expansion on a research project on early explorers. During their research, students were asked to record any information regarding starting  points, stops, and the final destination of the explorer.  Then, with this information, the students used the GIS program to plot the route taken by their explorer from the Old to the New World.  They each made a print of their route to complete the project.

Adobe Acrobat Format of teacher guide for this project

Word Document Format of Student guide for this project

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Mapping the Explorers of the World: Using ArcView 3.0 for Macintosh

  Goals:

1. Reinforce that social Studies lessons on the Age of Exploration and each student has done an individual research project on an explorer. As part fate project  the were asked to research the starting point and where the explorer traveled.
2. Using GIS, allows for a visual representation of the explorers travels.
3. Introduction to GIS for 4^th Grade students.

  GIS Skills to be learned:

  1.Identification of countries, cities, oceans,  lakes and rivers.

2. Learn to pan, magnification, identification, graphics and labeling tools.

3. Use of the World Map and layers.

  Geography Skills

  Understanding mapping skills of Cardinal and relative direction, identification of equator, hemispheres (east west north south)