Geography! Lesson Plan 1

This is a rough draft of a physical geography lesson plan

Geography
Unit: Weather and climate
Lesson: Hurricanes


Objectives:
1)Students will demonstrate knowledge of the causes of hurricanes by answering a short quiz.
2) Students will demonstrate knowledge of hurricane regions respective of human population by plotting courses of hurricanes on a population map.

Standard:
V.c.4 Physical features and processes

Grade level:
7th and 8th Grade

Time:
50 minute class period

Materials:
Overhead projector
Transparencies
1. images of hurricane formations.
2. formation diagram
3. global/regional hurricane map
4. global water temperature map
5. Coriolis model
6. global population map
7. 1 blank tracking map of the Southeast United States
8. Top list of most deadly hurricanes in past century
dry-erase markers
blank tracking maps for class
10+ sets of hurricane latitude and longitude data for Atlantic/SE U.S. region

Background:
This is part of a larger unit about atmospheric features and climate as related to geography. Students already need to be familiar with Latitude and Longitude.

Instruction Schedule:
5 minutes - Anticipatory set
1) Put the first image of a hurricane formation up and ask students to identify the image. Then ask why hurricanes are important to humans, and why they are interesting. Then ask students which hurricanes they remember.
2) Put up transparency of the most deadly in the last 150 years. Ask them to keep track of where some of these events happened.
10 minutes - Formation
3) Show image of formation. Explain the atmospheric principles of Hurricane formation a) warm water b) cool atmosphere c) moist mid layers d) distance from the equator and the Coriolis effect d) a disturbance in the pre-existing weather pattern (think gargantuan eddy) e) low wind shear.
10 minutes - Location
4) Show image of global hurricane regions. Verify their relationship to the equator.
5) Show image of water temps. Verify how to read the scales and the average temperatures. Note that there are differences in the hurricane seasons.
6) Place the global population map next to or do an overlay with the hurricane regions. Talk about the relationship between these population sets and the ‘most deadly’ and the ‘most costly hurricanes’. Discuss also, the historical population of these regions. Ask students why those earlier hurricanes were more deadly. Ask them what kinds of technology and policies affect survival. Also, ask if they can think of anything positive about living in these locations and about hurricanes in general.
7) optional: discuss the global differences in rating and naming hurricanes
10 minutes - the project
8) Instruct students that they will be receiving a set of data plots for the most recent hurricane season respective to the U.S. They should plot their hurricane on their map and then line up by the overhead to plot their hurricane’s course on the transparency. Pass out the data and the maps. When everyone is finished, place the overlay on a corresponding population map of the southeast U.S. Then talk about the most costly hurricanes of the last 150 years.
9) Pass out homework, students must read the news story on hurricane’s and global warming, and come prepared to talk about two hypothesis about global-warming’s effect.

Bibliography
Hurricane Formation
http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2010/finalwebsite/background/hurricanes/hurricanewhatis.html

Climatic comparison
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/F1.html

Population density around these regions
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/education/geog/population/intro.shtml

Coriolis force and winds
a. http://lurbano-5.memphis.edu/GeoMod/index.php/Image:Paper_fig1.jpg
b. http://www.rise.org.au/info/Res/wind/index.html

Data source and maps
a. http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/at2007.asp
b. http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/AT_Track_chart2.pdf

Discuss global warming article
a. http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/9/25/131154.shtml
b. http://www.scientificblogging.com/news/global_warming_may_mean_fewer_hurricanes
c. http://www.wunderground.com/education/webster.asp