Grade Level 3
Lesson Title: Location, Location, Location
Suggested Time Period: 1 week
Framework/Standards Connection and Geography Theme/Standards:
Standard 3.1: Students describe the physical and human geography and use maps, tables,
graphs, photographs, and charts to organize information about people, places and
environments in a spatial context.
Geography Theme:
Location
Focus Question(s):
1. Where is our community located?
Outcomes:
Students locate their community on various maps in order to create a flip book to answer
the question where is their community located.
Students will identify the absolute and relative location of their school by creating a map
and writing descriptive sentences.
Primary Sources/Literature:
world map with latitude and longitude indicators
various maps (can be found in the back of most social studies textbooks)
neighborhood map (located on front office counter of most LAUSD schools)
Activities:
1. Have students write down their addresses. Inform the students that since the
house or apartment in which they live never moves, but always stays in the same
spot, their address is an example of an absolute location - a precise point of the
surface of the earth.
2. Provide students with copies of world maps, state maps, city maps and, if
possible, neighborhood maps. Have students locate their school or home address
in their neighborhood, their neighborhood in relation to the city, the city in
relation to California, California in relation to The United States, and the United
States in relation to the world.
3. Discuss terms such as cities, counties, states, countries, continents, hemispheres,
and planets. Pass out cards with these terms written on them to selected students
and have them line up in sequential order from the smallest to the
largest. Students then create a flip book to show their place in the world which
includes these categories. Students may illustrate each page. (Appendix 1)
4. Taking two pieces of different colored yarn, have students tie one piece around a
world map vertically to represent longitude, and tie the other piece of yarn
horizontally to represent latitude (Appendix 2). Slide the yarn over to locate the
longitude, and slide the other yarn up or down to locate the latitude of the city in
which the students live. Students identify the latitude-longitude of their city as
another example of absolute location.
5.
Locate the city or town in which the students live on an area map of the Los
Angeles Region (Appendix 3) Have students identify the cities that border their
community and any other cities of special interest. Have students identify the
location of their city relative to the surrounding cities using directional terms
found on the compass rose. e.g. San Pedro is south of downtown Los Angeles.
6.
Have students walk to at least four specific places near their school. On a
neighborhood map, students mark the absolute locations of these places. Upon
return to the classroom, have students write two sentences about each place
identifying its absolute and relative location.
Independent Work:
Have students cut apart the Los Angeles Region map by cutting along the general city
borders and reassemble the map by placing each city in its absolute location by
considering its location relative to the other cities as a reference point.
Assessment
Have students make a map of the school that demonstrates absolute and relative
location. The map should include the following:
 address
 street names
 relevant nearby buildings or human features such as a park or school
Have students write two sentences about the school identifying its absolute and relative
location.
Bibliography
Delameter, Cynthia, and Dr. Melanie Renfrew, Kimberly Reems, Dr. Priscilla
Porter. Unit 1: Exploring Our Regional Landscape. Carson, Calif., 1998.