Alabama Social Studies SS24.7.1a
The Standard
- SS24.7.1
- Describe the world in spatial terms, using maps and other geographic representations, tools, and geospatial technologies.
Explain and demonstrate the use of map essentials, including direction, distance, legend, latitude, longitude, map type, projection, scale, and symbols.
2024 Alabama Course of Study: Social Studies
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students use a compass rose, scale, legend, and symbols to find places, follow directions, and measure distance. They locate points with latitude and longitude and choose a map type for a question. They compare projections and describe how each can distort size or shape.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can use a street map to give directions, identify a hospital symbol, and calculate a route distance from the scale. On a world map, they can plot coordinates, identify the map type, and explain where its projection stretches land.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may swap latitude and longitude or think north is always at the top of a map. They may read the scale as travel time or assume a world map shows every land area at its true size.
How to Assess It
- Hand out a political world map with grid lines, a scale, a legend, and a named projection. Ask students to mark 20° N, 30° E, give its direction from 0°, 0°, convert 2 cm using the scale, decode one symbol, and name one projection distortion.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Tape a compass rose to the floor, then have pairs follow direction cards between labeled desks and measure their route with string.
Show Mercator and equal-area world maps; ask students which they would use to compare Greenland and Africa, and why.
Play coordinate bingo: call latitude and longitude pairs while students mark the matching squares on gridded maps.
Give pairs a city street map; have them use its legend and scale to plot a route to the library and report distance.
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Printable SS24.7.1a Worksheet
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Related Standards
- SS24.1.8a
Identify map features, including title, cardinal directions, and key.
- SS24.7.1b
Use physical, political, and special-purpose maps to identify the distribution of people, location of places, and classification of physical features.
- SS24.3.1
Locate map features, using geographic terminology to describe them.
- SS24.K.7
Explain the purpose and use of maps.
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