National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS)

THEME III:

PEOPLE, PLACES, & ENVIRONMENTS

Using Mental Maps: Neighborhood Perceptions

Description: Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of people, places, and environments. The study of people, places and human-environment interactions assists students as they create spatial views and geographic perspectives of the world beyond their personal locations. Students need the knowledge, skills and understanding provided by questions such as: Where are things located? Why are they located where they are? What do we mean by "religion"? How do landforms change? What implications do these changes have for people?

Reflection:

People, Places and Environments is a vital concept and theme for students to take notice and learn from within their studies of history and social sciences. This is also an important issue since students need to learn how people’s environment throughout history has effected as to why people live where they do, why are things located where they are, and what geographical features influenced where societies and civilizations lived and prospered.

I implemented this theme into many of my lessons, from World War I, Islam, to regional civilization such as the Aztecs, Mayans, and the Incans. For example when I gave a lesson centered on the Incans I covered material as to why they lived in the Andes Mountains and which side (windward) this civilization lived. I used power point to show students pictures of the Andes Mountains and ruins from Inca cities. I asked them what they noticed about the land. Their response was that it is very mountainous. I then asked them where many of the buildings and cities built were. They then responded near the tops of mountains. What were they made of? They’re made of stone. I then shared some other interesting facts about the Inca with students. For instance, the Inca farmed on the mountainside by cutting terraces or "steps" into the slopes, where they grew corn and potatoes. Higher up in the mountains, the Inca herded llamas and alpacas (animals similar to sheep). These animals provided wool and food. The Inca built long roads along the mountains to connect the villages. Special runners sent messages along these roads. The runners were the most intriguing part of the lesson since the Incans did not have a written language I used the telephone experiential, in which I gave one student a statement and he/she passed it along to the other student until the message got to the last student. I did this three times and the message always seemed to get distorted in some way. I asked students if this was a reliable way to get messages across a long distance. Of course, the answer was no, but I addressed that these people had to be very skilled listeners to achieve this.

Overall, I will continue to use this theme in the future. I hope to incorporate it into as many lessons that involve aspects of people, places, and environment since geography does have a significant impact as to why and how things are situated today.