Carole Mayrose
Northview High School 1 Knight Drive
Brazil, IN 47834    August 2001

Grade Levels: 9-12

Purpose: To show a relationship between rivers and capital cities.

National Geography Standards:

Standard 1: How to use maps and other geographic representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process, and report information for a spatial perspective. Standard 2: How to use mental maps to organize information about people, places, and environments in spatial context.
Standard 3: How to analyze the spatial organization ofpeople, places, and environments on Earth's surface.
Standard 9: The characteristics, distribution, and migration of human populations on Earth's surface
Standard 15: How physical systems affect human systems

Standard 1: Students will use maps, globes, atlases, and grid-referenced technologies such as remote sensing. Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) to acquire and process information about people, places, and environments.
Standard 2: Students will acquire a place-location framework for thinking geographically. They will identify the physical and human characteristics of places. They will understand that people create regions to interpret Earth's complexity and that culture and experience influence people's perception of places and regions.
Standard 4: Students will identify and analyze the human activities that shape the Earth's surface, including population numbers, distribution and growth rates, rural and urban land use, ways of making a living, culture patterns, and economic and political systems. Using grid-based technology (i.e. remote sensing and GIS) whenever possible, they will map the distribution of various human phenomena and look for spatial patterns that the maps reveal.
Standard 5: Students will analyze ways in which humans affect and affect by there physical environment.
Standard 6: Students will describe the influence of physical and human factors of the evolution of significant historic events and movements. They will apply the geographic viewpoint to local, regional, and world polices and problems.

ES.l.25   Investigate and discuss the origin of various landforms, such as mountains and rivers, and how they affect and are affected by human activities.

• map of the United States with states and capitals
• colored pencils
• atlas
• road atlas
• web address--- www.nationalgeographi.com/xpeditions

1. Be familiar with the use of GIS for research
2. Be aware of the importance of rivers to cities
3. Analyze the placement of cities
4. Know the names of rivers in the United States

Decide if you want your students to do all the states or some of the states
copy United States map needed
collect a number of road atlases
copy state list

• Pass out map of United States and capitals.
• Pass out forms to be filled out.
• Instruct students in procedures.
• Go to Internet lab.
• Give first address for students to use (http://www.nationalgeographic.com) click on "Maps", click on "expeditions Black and White maps." Go to the "select" box and start down the list of states. A map of each state will come up. Start at the top with Alabama and go to Wyoming. Check and see if the capital is on a river.
• On the form fill in the capitals name.
• Put a check mark if it is on a river, write "no" or put a "?" if not on a river, or body of water.
• Write the name of the river on which the capital is located, or the body of water it is on (e.g. Atlantic Ocean).
• Locate and label the river on the United States and capitals map by drawing the river on the map in blue.
• After completing the list of states any capitals that were not shown to be on a river are to be looked up on a road atlas. If you now find the capital on a river, draw the river on the map in red.
• Write a paragraph or two why you think so many of these capitals are on rivers.

State                    Capital                            River                            Name River/body of water
_______________________________________________________________________________
Alabama
_______________________________________________________________________________
Alaska
_______________________________________________________________________________
Arizona
_______________________________________________________________________________
Arkansas
_______________________________________________________________________________
California
_______________________________________________________________________________
Colorado
_______________________________________________________________________________
Connecticut
_______________________________________________________________________________
Delaware
_______________________________________________________________________________
Florida
_______________________________________________________________________________
Georgia
_______________________________________________________________________________
Hawaii
_______________________________________________________________________________
Idaho
_______________________________________________________________________________
Illinois
_______________________________________________________________________________
Indian
_______________________________________________________________________________
Iowa
_______________________________________________________________________________
Kansas
_______________________________________________________________________________
Kentucky
_______________________________________________________________________________
Louisiana
_______________________________________________________________________________
Maine
_______________________________________________________________________________
Maryland
_______________________________________________________________________________
Massachusetts
_______________________________________________________________________________
Michigan
_______________________________________________________________________________
Minnesota
_______________________________________________________________________________
Mississippi
_______________________________________________________________________________
Missouri
_______________________________________________________________________________
Montana
_______________________________________________________________________________
Nebraska
_______________________________________________________________________________
Nevada
_______________________________________________________________________________
New Hampshire
_______________________________________________________________________________
New Jersey
_______________________________________________________________________________
New Mexico
_______________________________________________________________________________
New York
_______________________________________________________________________________
North Carolina
_______________________________________________________________________________
North Dakota
_______________________________________________________________________________
Ohio
_______________________________________________________________________________
Oklahoma
_______________________________________________________________________________
Oregon
_______________________________________________________________________________
Pennsylvania
_______________________________________________________________________________
Rhode Island
_______________________________________________________________________________
South Carolina
_______________________________________________________________________________
South Dakota
_______________________________________________________________________________
Tennessee
_______________________________________________________________________________
Texas
_______________________________________________________________________________
Utah
_______________________________________________________________________________
Vermont
_______________________________________________________________________________
Virginia
_______________________________________________________________________________
Washington
_______________________________________________________________________________
West
_______________________________________________________________________________
Virginia
_______________________________________________________________________________
Wisconsin
_______________________________________________________________________________
Wyoming

Adaptations/Extensions:
One:

1. Give each student the City and State Population Chart. Using the website: http://www.cencus.gov/, they are to look up the populations of the states and capitals they are assigned---all or a few.
2. Then figure the % of the population that live in the capital.

1. Assign each student a number of states. They are to find other large cities in the state that are on rivers and name what rivers. Collect the population numbers of these other cities.
2. Figure the total population of these cities and work the % to the state population.

Three:

1. Assign each student a number of states and have them relocate the capital and justify why and where they have moved the capital.

1. Added a column to your list for the date the capital was founded.
2. Have the student discuss the transportation at the time of the founding of the capital or capitals.

1. Use the original lesson for Europe
2. Use the original lesson for Africa
3. Use the original lesson for Asia
4. Use the original lesson for South America
5. Use the original lesson for the rest of North America and Central America

1. The accuracy of the map.
2. The clarity of the map.
3. The believability of their reasoning.

1. http://www.nationalgeographic.com
2. Road Atlas