 Adirondack
Curriculum
Project - www.adkcurriculum.org
NYS Content Area Standard
Social Studies
Standard 1: History of the United States and New York
Students will demonstrate skills by researching a probable
experience and writing about it from that person’s point of view
Standard 3: Geography
- Investigate how people depend upon and modify the physical
environment.
- Describe the relationships between people and environments and the
connections between people and places.
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Title: An
Adirondack Expedition
Grade Level: 7th Grade
Author: Cindy Ryan
Whitesboro Central School
Email: cryan2@wboro.org
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Adirondack Curriculum Content Area
_X_ Natural History
_X_ Human History
___ Culture & the Arts
___ Government & Civics
___ Economy
___ Health, Recreation &
Life Skills |
Investigative Question or Issue: What were some of the
experiences of the first people to explore the Adirondacks?
Challenge:
Learn
about an aspect of exploring the Adirondacks in the 1800s and share it
with others by creating a postcard in which you pretend that you
experienced it first-hand.
Student
Handout
Context for Challenge:
This is an activity that will nicely follow lessons on Lewis and
Clark.The following sequence is suggested:
1. Teach students
about Lewis and Clark in part by sharing excerpts from their
journals. The journal entries you choose should include Lewis or
Clark’s descriptions of new geographic features and species they
encounter.
2. Ask students what they know about the
Adirondacks. Give a mini-lesson on early travel to, and
exploration of, the Adirondacks.
3. Ask students to work in small groups to complete
the following:
- brainstorm
geographic features and species that early explorers of the Adirondacks
would have encountered, as well as unique experiences they might have
had
- filter out these ideas before sharing the best
ones with classmates (at this point you or a student should record
student ideas on chart paper)
4. Show students a short film about the
Adirondacks. Ideally, choose a film that focuses on the natural
and human history of the Adirondacks.
5. With students, edit and add to the list
you made in Step Three.
6. Divide the chart into categories.
Potential categories include: animals, insects, seasons and other
natural phenomena, and geographic features.
7. Find resources relating to these
topics.
8. Divide students into groups. Assign
each group a category and give them the relevant resources. Also
give them copies of the accompanying student handout (see below) and
blank 5x7 index cards.
9. Pass around postcards so that students
can become familiar with their structure. Discuss with students
the writing style they should use (descriptive, yet brief and to the
point).
10. When the students have finished making
their postcards, which will probably take three or four class periods,
ask volunteers to read aloud or pass around their work. Or have
the students “mail” them to each other! Then hang the postcards
on the wall for all to
see!
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Quality Standards:
Postcard
is:
- creative
- neat
- informative
- true to the standard format of a postcard (see
below)
Postcard includes:
- a picture (on front); picture includes at most
1 print from Internet and the rest is drawn by hand
- a brief description of picture (on back)
- a title or caption (on front)
- appropriate information about the aspect
chosen by the student in the form of a note to a friend or family
member (on back)
- fictitious addresses of the sender and
recipient (on back)
- fictitious postage and postal stamp (on back)
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Adapted for the Adirondack
Curriculum Project from
the work of Education By Design TM and Leading EDGE, LLC
©ACP 2002
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Produced
at the 2008 Adirondack Geography Institute