Universal Rights of the child to remain with their parents
Description: The ability to evaluate controversial issues is an important life skill of citizenship for all individuals. Using age appropriate lessons, teachers can help students learn how to use critical inquiry and higher levels of thinking to gain an understanding of sensitive issues, the stakes and stakeholders involved, and relevant viewpoints. In this lesson, students will learn about UNICEF’s Rights of the Child, focusing on the right of children to remain with their parents (with exceptions being in cases of abuse, neglect, or specific parental custody placement). Using examples from past history, as well as current events, students will gain an understanding of consequences when this right is violated, and respectfully participate in discussions with others when different viewpoints are expressed.
Grade level(s): Elementary & Middle School
Standards: GFL, OAS
Produced By: Lynn Tilley
Lives on Hold: Teaching the Refugee Crisis
Description: More people today have been forced to flee their homes by conflict and crisis than at any other time since World War II. Through this collaborative, hands-on lesson, students will simulate facets of involuntary migration and displacement. The resources provided allow students to engage with authentic situations experienced by asylum seekers, helping them to better empathize with and understand the plight of refugee families.
Grade level(s): Middle School
Standards: GFL, OAS
Produced By: Taylor Woodard
Developing Critical Literacy Skills While Examining Controversial Topics
The Deforestation Balancing Act
Description: The objective of the lesson is to examine the evidence linking deforestation to the controversial topic of climate change. Using the essential question, students will demonstrate an understanding of the causes of deforestation, including its role in global climate changes of the present and future. Students will conclude their investigations in a simulated climate conference, during which they will utilize geographic information and facts to support their views toward this controversial topic.
Grade level(s): Elementary & Middle School
Standards: OAS
Produced By: Pam Merrill
Teach a Man to Fish-Controversies Surrounding Foreign Aid
Description: Students will analyze the major controversies surrounding the rationale and impact of foreign aid to developing regions in order to formulate informed opinions and effectively engage in deliberations regarding financial assistance to growing economies.
Grade level(s): Middle and High School Standards: GFL, OAS
Produced By: Pam Merrill
Rich or Poor: Barriers and Paths to Development
Description: Students will examine basic reasons why some nations and regions develop while other do not, including analysis of the factors used by geographers to measure human development and two opposing models toward development, historically and currently utilized by developing nations’ leadership toward reaching economic progress. Use of real-world families from selected developed and developing regions serve as the catalyst for student investigations.
Grade level(s): Middle and High School Standards: GFL, OAS
Produced By: Pam Merrill
Dust to Dust: The Changing Face of a Desert
Description: The study of geography, history, and the social studies in general, provide ample opportunities for students to evaluate the positive and negative consequences of human modification the Earth’s surface through the use of limited and non-renewable resources. This lesson focuses on the ways imported technology rapidly transformed the arid environment of the Arabian Peninsula, only to be transformed again by human mismanagement of fossil aquifers just a few decades later.
Grade level(s): Middle Standards: GFL
Produced By: Pam Merrill
Urbanization in India: Push and Pull Factors
Conflict Kitchen
Description: The United States has conflicts with other countries. U.S. citizens have perceptions that are often negative toward these countries. How can we change these perceptions in our students? The answer is educating students about the culture and people of these countries, hence, the importance of geography classes. This lesson will allow the students to explore the culture of a country they are studying and work to change perceptions.
Grade level(s): Middle Standards: OAS, GFL Produced By: Brenda Chapman
You're so Fake!
The Oklahoma Standard: Tornados
Description: Students will develop an understanding of how tornados form. Identify and locate the cities where the top 10 worst tornados in Oklahoma occurred on the Giant Map of Oklahoma. They will specifically gather and analyze data from the Moore, Oklahoma 2013 tornado site using geospatial technology.
Grade level(s): Middle Standards: GFL, CC Produced By: Denise Aguilar
Inquiring Minds Want to Know
Description: The word today struggles with the credibility of stories and sources. There are a variety of reasons for this phenomenon – satire, entertainment, political partisanship, and social media. Students will experience the process of determining credibility of sources. (Media Literacy)
Grade level(s): Middle Standards: OAS, GFL Produced By: Brenda Chapman
Water We Going To Do?
Description: In this lesson, students will explore how water behaves on various substrates (ground surfaces), what occurs during a flood, and the causes of flash floods. This lesson concludes with students designing and testing various floodplain models intended to mitigate the effects of flash floods.
Grade level(s): Middle and High School Standards: OAS, GFL Produced By: Danny Mattox
Loaded Language: The Smoking Gun of Bias
Top Ten Most X-Treme Animals
I Have Heard of a Land: Using Oklahoma’s Giant Traveling Map, with Historical Maps, to Tell a Complete Story
Description: Geography is the landscape on which History happens. In this lesson, students will use an award-winning historical fiction picture book, the Oklahoma Giant Traveling Map, and a series of Oklahoma historical maps, to gain a better understanding of why Blacks from the South, single women, and other pioneers came to participate in the land runs, as well as the impact on Native Americans already living in the areas. Students will gain an appreciation and understanding that history usually has more than one perspective to events happening.
Grade level(s): Elementary, Middle, and High School Standards: OAS, GFL Produced By: Lynn Tilley
When Maps Lie
Description: Students will understand the limitations and uses of different map projections, as well as becoming familiar with how maps can be used to accidentally or intentionally misrepresent facts
Grade level(s): Elementary, Middle and High School Standards: OAS, GFL Produced By: Janet Hall
Carbon Footprints, Finding Solutions
Description: Students will gain understanding in the climate change. Students will engage in technology and create an action plan addressing the world-wide conservation and environmental crisis while learning human-environmental interaction concepts related in geography.
Grade level(s): Middle and High School Standards: OAS, GFL, CC Produced By: LeaAnn Wyrick
Oklahoma Route 66 Must See Attractions
Description: Students will discover the Mother Road, Route 66 by analyzing the history of the road, while specifically identifying locations of 10 must see attractions on the Oklahoma portion on the giant state map of Oklahoma. They will discover the importance of each attraction and select a specific one to create a presentation on.
Grade level(s): Middle Standards: GFL, C3 Produced By: Denise Aguilar