Teaching the EU Toolkits Elementary Lesson Plan 2.B What is Europe Like? Variety of Physical Geography

Objective: I know that Europe has a variety of geographic features and regions.

CCSS Standard(s): CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.7 Use information gained from illustrations (e.g., maps, photographs) and the words in a text to demonstrate understanding of the text (e.g., where, when, why, and how key events occur). CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.10 By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grades 4-5 text complexity band independently and proficiently.

Materials needed: Map of Europe

Agenda: Students will explore the other ways that we can have geographic understanding—that is, not only by country—by labeling geographic features and coloring geographic regions in Europe. This should be prefaced with a discussion of what geographic features and geographic regions are in order to improve depth of understanding.

Discussion guide: What is geography? What kinds of things do we look at in the study of geography? Other than country lines, what else do maps have on them in order to tell us about a place? What is a geographic feature? What is a geographic region?

Students will either be asked to use their map from Elementary Lesson 2.A or teacher will give them a new map of Europe in order to map out prominent European geographic features, including the following: Danube River, Rhine River, Ural Mountains. Pyrenees Mountains, The Alps, Mediterranean Sea, English Channel, Iberian Peninsula, Scandinavian Peninsula, Balkan Peninsula, North Sea, Baltic Sea, Norwegian Sea, and European Plain.

If relevant, relate the variety of physical geography in Europe back to that of North Carolina landscape: Just as we have a variety of geographic features, including mountains, piedmont, sea, lakes, and rivers, so does Europe. Though Europe is much bigger than North Carolina, both have mountainous regions to the sea, have rivers and lakes, and have piedmont regions. Both have a varied geographical landscape.

Conclusion: Europe has a variety of geographic features and regions.