Author: M Crampton, educator, Minnesota Alliance for Geographic EducationGrade/Audience: grade 4, grade 8, high schoolResource type: lessonSubject topic(s): mapsRegion: united statesStandards: Minnesota Social Studies Standards

Standard 1. People use geographic representations and geospatial technologies to acquire, process and report information within a spatial context.Objectives: Students will be able to:

1. Acquire skills in data based mapping.
2. Recognize patterns of distribution.
3. Analyze patterns of distribution.
4. Construct and evaluate hypotheses of those distributions.
5. Explain the concept of regions.Summary: Students become cartographers in this introductory lesson as they learn how to map data. Students will generate hypotheses based on the patterns and seek additional data to test the hypotheses. The lesson assumes data on U.S. states, but data at a local, national or global scale may be used.

Author: M Crampton, educator, Minnesota Alliance for Geographic EducationGrade/Audience: grade 8, high schoolResource type: lessonSubject topic(s): mapsRegion: united statesStandards: Minnesota Social Studies Standards

Standard 1. People use geographic representations and geospatial technologies to acquire, process and report information within a spatial context.Objectives: Students will be able to:

1. Acquire skills in data based mapping.
2. Recognize patterns of distribution.
3. Explain the concept of region.
4. Analyze multiple strategies used to map data.Summary: Students will understand the importance of recognizing patterns on the map as well as recognizing the strategy used by the mapmaker. The lessons assumes data on U.S. states, but data at a local, national or global scale may be used. Students should be familiar with choropleth mapping.