Teacher Notes Southwest Asia
Big Idea – Resources
Spatial Thinking Skill – Regions and regionalization
Scaffold Outline:
3-5: The sample lessons focus on two important ideas about regional geography.
The first big idea is that a location inside a region with a specific kind of resource tends to encourage
certain kinds of economic activity. At a broad scale, fertile soil encourages farming, while sandy ground
in warm places is more likely to be used for forestry, and thin soils in cold places are seldom used at all.
In this context, it is important to note that many things can be viewed as resources – flat land, mineral
deposits, strong winds, transportation corridors, strategic locations near river crossings, friendly
neighbors, nearby universities, even good views. Activity 2 uses poker chips (or circles drawn on a map)
to compare oil production and consumption in different world regions. This activity can be customized
(it’s a clickable file with multiple options); some versions have a very strong math component.
The second idea is like a mirror image of the first, namely that different groups of people may perceive
different resources and do different things even with basically the same kind of land. This awareness
provides the foundation for the civics skill of making decisions about how to use land and other resources
in your own community.
Resources: The main goal in early grades is to get students to realize two things:
1) The things they eat, wear, and use come from many different places, and
2) Resources can make it possible to produce things more efficiently in some places.
Knowledge (even sketchy knowledge) about the origins of things has a practical value – as adults,
people in every place have to decide what things they can produce in their location and sell to people
in other places in order to get the things they cannot (or do not want to) produce for themselves. This
fact has implications for individuals choosing jobs and residences, communities choosing educational
strategies and business subsidies, governments choosing tax policies and regulations, and so forth.
Activity
Where is the Middle?
Petroleum in the World
Jerusalem Thermometer
Graph (Making
Thermometer Graphs to
Compare Places)
Michigan Content Standards
4 – G1.0.3 Identify and describe the characteristics and purposes (e.g., measure
distance) of a variety of geographic tools and technologies (e.g., globe, map,
satellite image).
7 – G1.1.1 Explain and use a variety of maps, globes, and web based geography
technology to study the world, including global, interregional, regional, and
local scales.
4 – E2.0.1 Explain how changes in the United States economy impact levels of
employment and unemployment (e.g., changing demand for natural resources,
changes in technology, changes in competition).
4-G2.0.2: Compare human and physical characteristics of a region…. To
another region.
This comparison can be done in early grades, but the activity is not based on
regions in the United States.
6-12: The centerpiece of instruction at this grade level (and perhaps, in modified form, as early as grade
4 or 5) is the discussion-game called Choosing Locations. The activity includes two versions of the
handout map, and the folder has a presentation to guide class discussion. It also has a clickable pdf that
lets you produce customized versions of the map with specific kinds of information. The Activity
includes two background documents with information about the time periods involved and about the
individual places on the maps. An Early Civilizations graphic organizer can serve as a note-taking
organizer for individual inquiry or textbook reading.
Other Resources: The folder has a mapping activity about oil production and trade. Follow-up activities
about medieval trade and colonialism are not finished yet. An Overview presentation traces the origin and
expansion of various empires in Mesopotamia, from Sumeria to the spread of Islam. The *Multimedia
Presentations folder has units about Islam, modern migration, and water management, as well as a “geodiary” unit that compares the daily lives of two cousins, one living in Turkey and one in Germany. These
provide a modern slice-of-life story that contrasts with the headline stories that typically come out of
Southwest Asia.
Activity
Michigan Content Standards
Locations (Choosing
a Home Base;
Locations of Ancient
Capitals)
7-G2.1.1: Describe the landform features and the climate of the region under
study.
7-G2.2.3: Analyze how culture and experience influence people’s perception
of places and regions.
7-G4.3.2: Describe patterns of settlement by using historical and modern
maps.
7-G4.4.1: Identify and explain factors that contribute to conflict and
cooperation between and among cultural groups (e.g., natural resources,
power, culture, wealth)
Civilizations
(Conditions in Places
Where Civilizations
Started a Long Time
Ago)
6-W1.2.2: Describe the importance of the natural environment in the
development of agricultural settlements in different locations. (Also 7W1.2.1)
Promised Land
Timeline
7-G4.1.1: Identify and explain examples of cultural diffusion within the
Eastern Hemisphere.
Rivers Divide or
Unite People
7-G1.2.6: Apply the skills of geographic inquiry to analyze a problem or
issue of importance to a region of the Eastern Hemisphere.
7-W2.1.2: Use historical and modern maps and other sources to locate,
describe and analyze major river systems and discuss the ways these physical
settings supported permanent settlements, and development of early
civilizations.
Water in
Mesopotamia
Oil Production and
Trade (Trends
through Time)
7-G6.1.1: Contemporary Investigation Topics
Oil and Society – Investigate the significance of how oil has changed nations
as both consumers and producers of this natural resource.
Economic Interdependence – Trade
3.2.1: Absolute and Comparative Advantage: Use the concepts of absolute
and comparative advantage to explain why goods and services are produced
in one nation or locale versus another.
Capstone: Mini-Activity 1G* provides a way to compare the importance of oil as a resource in the
economies of various countries around the world. Many (if not all) of the economic woes that plague
Egypt, for example, can be traced to the simple fact that the country has lost its main source of income –
oil sales – and the people have been unable or unwilling to find something else that they can sell to the
rest of the world in order to support their economy. (You can bring this idea home by looking at the recent
histories of cities like Detroit, Pittsburgh, or Youngstown, which have lost important industries and have
responded in different ways.)
Resources: Country profiles in the CIA Factbook offer a starting point for a look at options available to
people in Southwest Asia. Focus on the mix of imports and exports. The biggest danger is getting
lost in the details. This is precisely why an organizing strategy such as regionalization or importexport modeling is so useful, as a way of trimming away the “shrubbery” in order to focus on the
central ideas.
The Big Idea presentation and clickable Atlas also provide background for investigations of
“minority” ethnic groups such as the Kurds and geographic patterns of religion (especially the SunniShi’a split within Islam).
*Teaching Geography by Phil Gersmehl, The Guilford Press, 2014.
Curriculum Connections:
Approx
Grade
Related
Class
Common
Spatial
Core
Reasoning
Where is the middle? (globe
activity, clickable file)
Oil in the World Producers and Consumers
P/E
Geog
Math
Location
E/M
Econ
Math
Comparison
Thermometer graph for
Jerusalem
Timelines of the Promised
Land
Choosing locations Resources and civilizations
E/M
Earth Sci
Math
Analogy
E/M/U
History
Reading
Sequence
M/U
Hist, Econ
Listening
Region
Rivers as resources can
divide or unite people
M/U
History
Reading
Several
Water budgets in
Mesopotamia
M/U
Econ
Math
Spatial Model
Making a map of oil
resources and trade
M/U
Econ
Math
Connections
Oil-drilling math
M/U
Econ
Math
Comparison
Activities
Keywords
string, tip, cross,
middle, globe, map
production,
consumption, tilemap,
stack, represent
temperature, average,
monthly, graph, similar
event, influence,
timeline, era
resource, gatherer,
irrigation, trade,
colony, empire
river, crossing,
irrigation, boat, port,
pollution, flood
inflow, addition,
withdrawal, outflow,
budget, system
flow line, producer,
consumer, import,
export
production, rate,
duration, profit,
depletion, terrorism