April 2012
5th Grade: Unit- Landforms
Duration: 45 Minutes
Landforms: Investigation – Bird’s Eye View
Objective:
Students will synthesize their knowledge of topographic maps with their knowledge of landforms
from the previous unit by making comparisons between the topographic map and the aerial
photograph of Mt. Shasta.
Materials needed:
For each group
 Topographic map poster of Mt. Shasta
 Aerial photograph of Mt. Shasta
 Foam mountain replica of Mt. Shasta
 Hand lenses
 Student Worksheet
For the teacher:
 Post-it “flags”
Teacher Preparation:
 Make copies of worksheet
 Preassemble the foam mountains to save time and ensure correct orientation (the
students have already had the opportunity to assemble and dissemble these foam
mountains multiple times)
Resources:
1. FOSS Teacher’s Guide: Landforms
Procedures:
I. Opening (5 minutes)
 To allow more time for exploration, begin with a very brief review of the vocabulary
terms covered in the previous lessons
 Topographic map / Profile map / base / peak / contour internal / contour
lines / elevation / sea-level / benchmark
II. Activity (30-35 minutes)
 Tell the class that today we are all going to be surveyors (define term)
 Divide the class into 8 groups (roughly 3 students per group) and distribute materials
(topographic map, aerial photo, foam mountain, worksheet)
 Have students orient the foam mountain, topographic map, and aerial photo so that
the peaks and directions of ridges and canyons are matching
 Students will use the topographic maps to identify locations in the photograph
 Write the list of following locations on the board and ask them to find each
one (distribute post-it flags and ask students to mark the different locations)
 Shastina
 The peak of Mt. Shasta
 Wintun Glacier
 North Gate
 Hidden Valley
 Mud Creek Glacier
 After they have identified these locations, begin to answer the questions on the
worksheet
 Instruct the class to work as a group and try thoroughly to answer the
questions on their own before asking for help from the teacher
III. Closing/Wrap Up (5-10 minutes)
 Ask students to take out the word banks we created at the end of the last lesson and
add the following entries:
 Aerial photograph = a photograph of the earth’s surface taken from an
airplane or spacecraft flying above the earth
 Scale = describes the ration between a measured distance on a map to the
actual distance in the real world.
 Surveyor = a person who measures and marks the distance, elevation,
position, and boundaries of land areas
 Bar scale = a ruler line on a topographic map that shows the scale
 Representative fraction = tells the scale of a map as a ration between
distance on a map to distance in the real world
Student Assessment:
 Collect worksheet from class activity
 Distribute Landforms Study Guide
 Tell students to attempt to complete the worksheet individually before the
following week’s lesson as a study aid
 I will distribute an answer key the following week