Lesson: Describing United States Regions
Audience: Elementary School
National Geography Standard:
Standard 5: That people create regions to interpret Earth’s complexity
 Regions serve as a valuable organizing technique for framing detailed
knowledge of the world and for asking geographic questions
Michigan’s Grade Level Content Expectations:
 GLCE 4-G2.0.1
Describe different ways in which the United States can be divided into regions
Materials:
Student participation cards for place characteristics of the United States
Thematic maps of the United States (population density, rainfall, land use, physical,
married couple households, poverty, and professional sports franchises)
Blank political maps of the United States
Colored pencils, crayons, or markers
Background Information on this Standard for Teachers:
Reference: Geography Standards. (2001). Washington, DC: National Geographic
Society. Retrieved March 23, 2009, from
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/standards/05/index.html
Region is a concept that is used to identify and organize areas of Earth’s surface for
various purposes. A region has certain characteristics that give it a measure of
cohesiveness and distinctiveness that set it apart from other regions. As worlds within
worlds, regions can be used to simplify the whole by organizing Earth’s surface on the
basis of the presence or absence of selected physical and human characteristics. As a
result, regions are human constructs whose boundaries and characteristics are derived
from sets of specific criteria. They can vary in scale from local to global; overlap or be
mutually exclusive; exhaustively partition the entire world or capture only selected
portions of it. They can nest within one another, forming a multilevel mosaic.
Understanding the idea of region and the process of regionalization is fundamental to
being geographically informed.
Understanding the nature of regions requires a flexible approach to the world. The criteria
used to define and delimit regions can be spatially precise as coastlines and political
boundaries or as spatially amorphous as suggesting the general location of people with
allegiances to a particular professional athletic team or identifying a market area for
distributing the recordings of a specific genre of music. Regions can be as small as a
neighborhood or as vast as a territorial expanse covering thousands of square miles in
which the inhabitants speak the same language. They can be areas joining people in
common causes where they can become areas for conflict, both internal and external.
Geographers define regions in three basic ways:
The first type is the formal region. It is characterized by a common human property, such
as the presence of people who share a particular language, religion, nationality, political
identity or culture, or by a common physical property, such as the presence of a particular
type of climate, landform, or vegetation. Political entities such as counties, states,
countries, and provinces are formal regions because they are defined by a common
political identity. Other formal regions include climate regions (e.g., areas with a
Mediterranean climate), landform regions (e.g., the Ridge and Valley and Piedmont
regions of Pennsylvania), and economic regions (e.g., the wheat belt of Kansas, the
citrus-growing areas of south Texas, and the irrigated farmlands of the Central Valley of
California). Formal regions can be defined by measures of population, per capita income,
ethnic background, crop production, population density and distribution, or industrial
production, or by mapping physical characteristics such as temperature, rainfall, growing
season, and average date of first and last frost.
The second type of region is the functional region. It is organized around a node or focal
point with the surrounding areas linked to that node by transportation systems,
communication systems, or other economic association involving such activities as
manufacturing and retail trading. A typical functional region is a metropolitan area (MA)
as defined by the Bureau of Census. For example, the New York MA is a functional
region that covers parts of several states. It is linked by commuting patterns, trade flows,
television and radio broadcasts, newspapers, travel for recreation and entertainment.
Other functional regions include shopping regions centered on malls or supermarkets,
area served by branch banks, and ports and their hinterlands.
The third type of region is the perceptual region. It is a construct that reflects human
feelings and attitudes about areas and is therefore defined by people’s shared subjective
images of those areas. It tends to reflect the element of people’s mental maps, and,
although it may help to impose a personal sense of order and structure on the world, it
often does so, on the basis of stereotypes that may be inappropriate or incorrect. Thus
southern California, Dixie, and the upper Midwest are perceptual regions that are thought
of as being spatial units, although they do not have precise borders or even commonly
accepted regional characteristics and names.
Some regions, especially formal regions, tend to be stable in spatial definition, but may
undergo change in character. Others, especially functional regions, may retain certain
basic characteristics, but may undergo spatial redefinition over time. Yet other regions,
particularly perceptual regions, are likely to vary over time in both spatial extent and
character.
Regional change, in the context of the human spatial organization of Earth’s surface, is an
area of study that provides students with opportunities to examine and learn about the
complex web of demographic and economic changes that occur.
Regions serve as a valuable organizing technique for framing detailed knowledge of the
world and for asking geographic questions. Because regions are examples of geographic
generalizations, students can learn about the characteristics of other regions of the world
by knowing about one region. Knowing about the physical processes that create the
Mediterranean climate and vegetation of southern California, for example, can serve as
an analogue for learning about other regions with Mediterranean climates and vegetation
in Australia, Europe, South America, and Africa. Regions provide a context for
discussing similarities and differences between parts of the world.
Through understanding the idea of region, students can apply geographic knowledge,
skills, and perspectives to solving problems as immediate as making an informed
decision about a neighborhood zoning issue or as long-range as predicting the
reconfiguration of political and economic alliances owing to resource shortages or
changes in the global ecosystem. Most importantly, studying regions enables students to
synthesize their understanding of the physical and human properties of Earth’s surface at
scales that range from local to global.
Background Information on Teaching Regions for Teachers:
Gersmehl, Phil (2005). Teaching Geography. New York: Guilford Press, pp. 80.
“Drawing lines around regions is mostly for the purpose of comparison and classification.
The key question is: What other places resemble this place or are connected to it? The
result of drawing lines around regions is to simplify a map and make it easier to compare
with other maps. And as I have already said several times [Gersmehl cites Chapters 6
and 9 of his book], comparison of map patterns is one of the most powerful analytical
tools of geography.”
Anticipatory Set:
Using your students’ seating arrangement, have them represent the area of the contiguous
United States. Check their understanding by showing them a map of the United States
overlaying their seating arrangement.
Opening Activity:
Hand out a student participation card to represent the distribution of population density
that matches the thematic map of population density of the United States. Ask the
students to stand when prompted by your question about their cards. Show the students
the population density map, having them describe the comparison between what they
performed using the cards and the map shown to them. Repeat this activity for rainfall.
Lastly, have the students repeat the activity for land use. When showing the land use
thematic map, ask the students which part of their map would urban areas be located.
Summarize the activity by asking students review the land use found in Michigan and
other States. Ask if a State could be located in two different regions. Respond that
States, which have fixed boundaries, could be located in different regions based upon the
characteristics used to describe a region.
Lesson Activity:
1. Display a physical map of the United States. Give each student a copy of the
physical map.
2. Lead a class discussion about how this map would be organized into regions
based on the physical characteristics found in the key on the map. Remind
students that the regional lines do not have to be state borders.
3. Have students draw outline the regions on their map as you outline the regions on
your map.
4. Explain to your students that not all states must be included in a region
depending on the characteristics. Ask the students if there could be two regions
based on the same characteristic? Respond that there could be an “East Forest
Region” and a “Northwest Forest Region” based on this map.
Extending the Lesson:
Students can practice drawing outlines of regions using the thematic maps of married
couple households and poverty. You can also use the following links to find other maps:
http://www.ipl.org/youth/stateknow/popchart.html
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/map_sites/country_sites.html#united_states
http://factfinder.census.gov/jsp/saff/SAFFInfo.jsp?_pageId=thematicmaps&_submenuId=maps_1
Your students may work in small groups with each group given a thematic United States
map. The groups should discuss how and why they would organize the map into regions
based on the characteristics shown on the map. Finally, they should make a decision and
draw the outline of the regions onto the map. The students should review the criteria for
determining their regions:
A region must have a common and/or dominant characteristic.
A region can be created on human, physical, or functional characteristics.
A place can be part of more than one region at the same time.
Not every place on a map needs to be a part of a region based on the selected
characteristics.
Culminating Activity
Give each student a map showing the locations of the major sports franchises in the
United States. The students should decide how and why to divide this map into regions,
drawing the regions onto the map. The students should write a few sentences describing
how they divided the US into regions and why they felt this was a good way to create a
regional map.
Assessment Task
The students will use data to create a regional map of the United States using a blank outline map. Every state that has the same
selected characteristic or dominant characteristic would be given a certain color. Students would write a persuasive letter to a mapmaking company, such as Nystrom. In the letter, students could explain how and why they created the map and describe the regions.
Then, they could argue why this map should be published and for what audience(s) a map like this would be of value.
The following rubric can be used to score the assessment task:
Score Point
4
Exceeds Standard
The student
constructs a
map of the
United States
showing how
it can be
divided into
regions.
The student displays
correctly a thematic map
showing functional
regions of the United
States sharing common
and/or dominant
characteristics.
The student
describes the
characteristics
of the regions.
The student composes an
accurate description of the
characteristics of the
regions, and explains
which audience would
value a published version
of the map.
3
Meets
Standard
The student displays
correctly a thematic map
showing regions of the
United States with a
common and/or dominant
human or physical
characteristic.
2
Approaching
Standard
The student displays with
partial correctness a
thematic map showing
regions of the United
States with a common
and/or dominant
characteristic.
1
Not Meeting
Standard
The student displays a
thematic map showing
regions of the United States
but without a common
and/or dominant
characteristic.
The student composes an
accurate description of the
characteristic of the
regions.
The student composes a
partially accurate
description of the
characteristic of the
regions.
The student composes a
description of the regions,
but without the
characteristics that the
regions share.