My inner city math and science academy is located in a large urban area in Illinois. 95% or our students receive free or reduced lunch. Each year my 4th grade students connect with scientists in the Amazon through the Wilderness Classroom project. We communicate through email and streaming video to follow their trek through the rain forest. The travelers send us pictures of South American people, animals, homes and plants, along with a daily dilemma to solve (identifying an animal, a location, or a problem such as what to do with their trash). They also give the children the opportunity to choose where they want the explorers to travel the next day, and abide by the class's decision. We even received a picture of a child living on the Amazon wearing one of our school's T-shirts we had sent to the scientists! The children love the interactive nature of the lessons and have learned a great deal about this southern continent.
To teach the children more about where the scientists are traveling, I'd like a large map of South America. As we travel vicariously with the explorers, we can pinpoint the towns, rivers and areas that the scientists talk about, and follow their trail through the rain forest. Geography is often a neglected topic and this map will add the study of continents and land forms to our curriculum.
The world is getting smaller and the evidence is that email and streaming video have become commonplace tools in our classroom. But maps have a place, too. The children will be able to have hands on interaction with the map, learn what the colors on a physical map mean, to visualize height above sea level, tributaries, landforms, city names, and map scales as they connect with the people from south of the equator. Your help with this enrichment tool will provide another way for my students to understand this grand globe we live on.
Nearly all students from low‑income households
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