2 Contents Original Preface ................................................................................................... 4 Introductory Reflections ...................................................................................... 5 Scope and Sequence ............................................................................................. 9 Lesson 1 - How All Things Praise the Lord ...................................................... 11 Lesson 2 - Our World - Part 1 ........................................................................... 12 Lesson 3 - The Sailor-boy's Gossip .................................................................... 14 Lesson 4 - Our World - Part 2 ........................................................................... 16 Questions on Lessons 2 and 4 ........................................................................ 18 Lesson 5 - The Star ............................................................................................ 19 Lesson 6 - Our World and Other Worlds - Part 1 ............................................. 20 Lesson 7 - Our World and Other Worlds - Part 2 ............................................. 23 Questions on Lesson 6 and 7 ......................................................................... 25 Lesson 8 - The Sunshine................................................................................... 26 Lesson 9 - Day and Night .................................................................................. 27 Lesson 10 - The Blind Boy ................................................................................. 29 Lesson 11 - Poles and Axis ................................................................................ 30 Questions on Lessons 9 and 11 ...................................................................... 32 Lesson 12 - The Four Seasons - Part 1 ............................................................. 33 Lesson 13 - The Voice of Spring ........................................................................ 35 Lesson 14 - The Four Seasons - Part 2 ............................................................. 36 Questions on Lesson 14.................................................................................. 39 Lesson 15 - Summer .......................................................................................... 40 Lesson 16 - Harvest Thanksgiving.................................................................... 41 Lesson 17 - Winter ............................................................................................. 42 Lesson 18 - Climate and Countries ................................................................... 43 Questions on Lesson 18.................................................................................. 47 Lesson 19 - The Humming-bird......................................................................... 49 Lesson 20 - The Land of Ice at the South Pole ................................................. 50 Lesson 21 - Parallel Lines ................................................................................. 51
Transcript
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Contents Original Preface ................................................................................................... 4
Introductory Reflections Charlotte Mason was a respected Christian British educator in the late nineteenth century. She offered an alternative method of education to the traditional model common in her time. Her methods were often adopted by middle-class parents teaching their children at home and by upper-class families who frequently used governesses. Many schools (mostly private) also implemented her methods with great success. Charlotte Mason founded the House of Education, a teaching college for governesses in Ambleside, in the Lake District of England. She also wrote a six volume series on educating children.
Charlotte Mason’s books were well received as they offered practical teaching ideas and taught the teacher how to give children a generous and rich education. Paramount in Charlotte Mason’s philosophy was fostering a child’s relationship and knowledge of God. Charlotte Mason also emphasised the importance of the home environment, teaching with books and respect for the child. Charlotte Mason’s ideas and methods have received growing interest in modern homeschooling. Many home educators have adopted her teaching philosophies and techniques and this is what we call The Charlotte Mason Method.
Mason encouraged learning outdoors, particularly for science and physical geography, to use observations in nature as a basis for understanding the world around us. Charlotte Mason had an interest in geography, writing a number of geography texts, including Elementary Geography. Mason considered geography to have a “peculiar value… to nourish the mind with ideas and to furnish the imagination of pictures”. She outlined how a student should be instructed in geography through the years, starting with their own immediate spaces first, being taught along the way, particularly through nature walks. Pictorial geography was promoted by Mason, encouraging educators to have children first examine the landscape around them and then compare to other physical features of other places. Physical geography in the younger years then formed a foundation for the science pursued later on, along with history too. Mason wrote:
“Perhaps no knowledge is more delightful than such an intimacy with the earth's surface, region by region, as should enable the map of any region to unfold a panorama of delight, disclosing not only mountains, rivers, frontiers, the great features we know as 'Geography,' but
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associations, occupations, some parts of the past and much of the present, of every part of this beautiful earth.” (A Philosophy of Education. p.224)
Elementary Geography is a resource to nourish young minds and helps to not only understand the world around them, but to also use that understanding to pique their interest and extend their knowledge of places further afield, introducing concepts conversationally and relationally. However, given the developments in cartography, remote sensing and geographic information systems, new discoveries and increased understanding of our world since Mason penned this text, some educators may find the need to make Elementary Geography more current. Susan Schaeffer Macaulay notes “Charlotte Mason thought that schools and educational programs had a duty to keep up with the thinking of their times… It was intrinsic to her philosophy that a curriculum would stay relevant to a child’s background and up to date while not ditching old treasures.”1 This Companion Guide aims to help educators prepare lessons by flagging where developments, research and innovations have broadened understanding of a topic, possible questions to expect, complementary resources, and noting where it is useful to be sensitive to language which is no longer commonly used. The inspiration to prepare this Companion Guide came from Michelle Morrow, a talented home educator, who wanted a resource to assist educators use Mason’s original text in a contemporary geographical framework. I have always enjoyed geography, and pursued it as one of my majors while completing a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) and Bachelor of Laws. I have worked in the environment and heritage area for nearly twenty years, including balancing motherhood and home education with University teaching for the last decade. Michelle and I had collaborated on a Charlotte Mason inspired geography resource previously and I was delighted to work with her again on this Companion Guide. This Companion Guide can be used in a formal lesson style or in a discursive context and is a great addition for Morning Time (or Circle Time). Given it is suitable for a range of ages it makes an ideal resource to use with multiple students. Younger students will enjoy the oral lesson and for the student further along the journey, this can be teamed with mapping exercises or drills, checking on geography definitions and vocabulary, notebooking activities and pursing additional reading. In a Morning Time context, this resource could be
1 Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, ‘The Value of Charlotte Mason’s Work for Today’, in E. Cooper (ed.), When Children Love to Learn: A Practical Application of Charlotte Mason’s Philosophy for Today, Illinois, Crossway, 2004, p. 29.
added into the schedule to read one lesson each week and the resource would be completed in one school year. Michelle Morrow offers some excellent suggestions on undertaking geography through a Charlotte Mason perspective that I encourage you to read. These can be found at: https://www.homeschoolingdownunder.com/category/geography/ In addition to this Companion Guide, you will require:
- An atlas - A compass (introduced in Lesson 27) - A World Map Journal
One World Map Journal is provided in the purchase of this resource and additional copies can be purchased from: https://www.homeschoolingdownunder.com/shop/world-map-journal/ Alternatively, you can use the blackline map master provided at the end of this ebook. The World Map Journal includes a blackline masters map of the world surrounded by ovals for including short notes. Suggestions on how to complete the World Map Journal are included in this Companion Guide, marked as World Map Journal Activity after some lesson question sections. However, families are encouraged to adapt and add to this as best suits the ability and interest of students. For instance, if using this with students that are a little older than the suggested range, written narrations could be included or further mapping exercises. Once you have the above items, read through the Guide Note for the relevant lesson and Charlotte Mason’s original text. There may be certain aspects that you wish to research further and the suggested resources are given as a starting point. Then, read aloud Charlotte Mason’s text to your students, amending or altering her original text where appropriate (as noted in the Guide Notes). After reading the lesson aloud you may wish to use this opportunity to invite narration. After some lessons there are guided questions and mapping exercises to be completed. I offer the Companion Guide with the intent that, when giving a lesson using this Guide, one would read aloud Charlotte Mason’s text only. My text is
The statement Miss Mason makes in this passage about there being many parts of our world which nobody has seen is likely to be a conversation starter for students, along with the concept of brave men making difficult and dangerous journeys of exploration. This can be a good provocation for discussing famous explorers of the seas and overland but also to consider whether there are still places that remain undocumented and yet to be explored today. Students may also consider the ways in which explorations have been documented and information made available to others. Those with an interest in history may also be encouraged to consider the extent to which our exploration of places has changed our understanding of our world compared with that in Mason’s time.
Along with the technological advances in scientific research and the technological advances in transportation and communications, it can be challenging for younger students to appreciate what information was available in Mason’s time and how much we now know in comparison. Provoking a conversation about how the field of geography is changing is a great way to introduce reading this resource and will stir their curiosity and highlight that studying geography is a fascinating perspective on physical, political, social and cultural issues of our world. Geographical scale, in particular, is an important perspective which geographers, as explorers of the future, may wish to consider.
In talking about the places that may be considered to be unexplored today, students could examine Vale Do Javari in the Amazon Basin in Brazil or the Northern Patagonian Ice Field in Southern Chile. The Northern Patagonian Ice Field, with explorations in the 1960’s and 1970’s provides students with an opportunity to consider glaciers outside of polar areas that are still being investigated. Celine Cousteau’s Tribes On the Edge (www.tribesontheedge.com) includes information on Vale Do Javari, which is considered to be the largest population on earth currently living without contact with the outside world. Other places students may be interested in are locations in Myanmar, Madagascar, southern Namibia, or Greenland.
Alternatively, it may be of interest to pose questions to students around what it means for a place to be unexplored, the current motivations behind the scale of exploration, and what does it mean to be discovering more about a place and its people. For example, Fiordland National Park, New Zealand and Cape Melville, Australia are both places where new species of animals are still being discovered. This puts exploration in different context to that of Mason’s time, but shows continual discoveries.
Perhaps you have not yet thought much about places far from the town or village where your home is. No doubt you have heard of the wonderful sights of London, if you have not seen them, and you know that London and many other towns are in our own country, England. Perhaps, too, you have friends
who have travelled, and who speak of far-away places they have seen. And you may have thought, as you listened, how very big the world must be to hold so many places!
Our wonderful, beautiful world is very large and very full; with more people and places and things in it than you can ever know about. Indeed, there are many parts of it which nobody has seen yet, though brave men often make difficult and very dangerous journeys to find out and explore these unknown places. But, after all, the strange thing is, that our world must come to an end somewhere. Have you ever thought of that? It was a great puzzle to learned men who lived long ago, and who did not know so much about some things as you may learn before the end of this lesson. They knew the world was not everywhere; that the sun and moon which shine above us are not part of the world, but are a great way off. So they said, Why do we never come to the end of the world? If we journey on over land and sea for years, surely we should come to the end then? And what is the end like? Would we fall off the edge, just as a cup might fall off the edge of a table?
At last it was discovered that people never came to the end of the world on account of its shape. There are certain things we use which you might run your finger along all day without ever coming to an edge. Round things, such as balls or oranges, have no edge, no end. And our world is round. It is more the shape of an orange than of a ball, because it is a little bit flat at what we may call the top and bottom.
This was a wonderful thing to find out. You can see that a ball is round; even if it were a ball as big as the house, you could see enough of it to know its shape. But only God above can see the whole of this huge world; how then could men discover its shape?
You would not understand all the reasons which prove that the world is round, but three are easy enough. The captain of a ship found out that, by sailing on and on, and never turning back, he came at last to the very place he had started from. Try that plan on a straight table, and you will find that the farther you go, the farther you will be from your starting place. Try on a ball which you have first stuck a pin into for a mark. After you have moved your finger half-way round the ball, the farther you go, the nearer you get to the pin, until at last you touch it, and have reached again the point you started from. As people now very often sail round the world in this way, we know that the world is round in one direction. The other two reasons we shall find in the fourth lesson.
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Lesson 3 - The Sailor-boy's Gossip
You say, dear mamma, it is good to be talking With those who will kindly endeavour to teach. And I think I have learnt something while I was walking Along with the sailor-boy down on the beach. He told me of lands where he soon will be going, Where humming-birds scarcely are bigger than bees, Where the mace and the nutmeg together are growing, And cinnamon formeth the bark of some trees. He told me that islands far out in the ocean Are mountains of coral that insects have made, And I freely confess I had hardly a notion That insects could world in the way that he said. He spoke of wide deserts where the sand-clouds are flying. No shade for the brow, and no grass for the feet; Where camels and travelers often lie dying, Gasping for water and scorching with heat. He told me of places away in the East, Where topaz, and ruby, and sapphires are found: Where you never are safe from the snake and the beast, For the serpent and tiger and jackal abound. I thought our own Thames was a very great stream, With its waters so fresh and its currents so strong; But how tiny our largest of rivers must seem To those he had sailed on, three thousand miles long. He speaks, dear mamma, of so many strange places, With people who neither have cities nor kings. Who wear skins on their shoulders, paint on their faces, And live on the spoils which their hunting-field brings.
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Lesson 6 - Our World and Other Worlds - Part 1
Guide Note As Mason refers to only eight planets in the solar system, there is opportunity to discuss the number of planets in our solar system and how Pluto is classified. Pluto was discovered in the 1930’s by Clyde W. Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, some time after Elementary Geography was first published. At that time it was classified as the ninth planet of our solar system. However, as both ground and space-based observatories have become more powerful, our understanding of the outer Solar System has also increased. Astronomers now consider Pluto to be an object in what is known as the Kuiper Belt, which includes objects that are comparable in size to Pluto. As astronomers then determined it was likely they would discover another object in the Kuiper Belt that was larger than Pluto, the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union was asked, in 2006, to make a final definition on the term “planet”. The International Astronomical Union definition of a planet requires an object to meet three requirements: 1. Must orbit around the sun; 2. Have sufficient gravity to pull itself into a spherical shape; and 3. Needs to have “cleared the neighbourhood” of its orbit. It was the third requirement that Pluto could not meet. This requirement refers to the way that planets become the dominant gravitational body in their orbit of the Solar System. It means that, when interacting with other smaller objects in space, a planet will consume them when forming or push them away with their gravity. Consequently, astronomers consider that we have eight planets in our Solar System, thus making Charlotte Mason’s original text accurate, but not reflective of this discovery. Pluto is also referred to as a dwarf planet and a plutoid. A plutoid is a dwarf planet which is further out in space than Neptune. For those students interested in Galileo (1564 – 1642), Starry Messenger (1996) by Peter Sis, is a beautifully illustrated book on Galileo and the way his thinking challenged the current view of the world.
About three hundred years ago, there lived a wise man, named Galileo, who spent his nights in watching the stars, and in considering how they moved. Perhaps you think the stars are little shining lamps, lit up in the sky every night which do not move at all. Galileo knew better; and, in his long night-watches, he found out some wonderful things about our world which you shall hear.
Not that he was exactly the first to make these discoveries. But Galileo was among the first who wished to make others as wise as himself. He wrote his wonderful secrets in a book, and taught the people. Alas, his books were burned, and he, himself, was imprisoned. Men said his strange tales were not true, and were angry with the man who wished to teach them.
Have you noticed that things look smaller and smaller the farther you are from them? That a kite flies up, till it looks like a speck; that a man in the distance looks no bigger than a child?
Get far enough off, and the very largest thing looks no bigger than a dot. Even our own great world would seem no larger than one of the stars in the sky if we could get far enough off to see it so small; which we never can, because we cannot get out of our own world.
Galileo’s wonderful discovery was, that nearly all the stars we see in the sky are as large, some of them many times as large, as our world. They are so far off that they look small to us, just as our world would look if seen from a star.
Then he went on to tell that our world is really a kind of star, which, with seven others something like it, is always going round the sun. These eight stars, which are always wandering round the sun, are called planets, a word which means wanderers. Our world is a planet, and its name is Earth; another planet is called Venus; and each of the other planets has a name of its own which you may learn some day.
But, you say, the stars all shine like lamps; how then can our earth look like a star? It is not on fire. It is true that more of the stars do shine and burn like the sun, but these eight planets, of which our earth is one, shine in another way.
Have you ever seen the windows of a house look red and bright when the sun was shining on them in the evening? Sometimes you would think the house was on fire, they look in such a blaze; but it is only the light of the sun which they are sending back, or reflecting. On a sun-shiny, hot day by the sea-side
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Lesson 11 - Poles and Axis
Guide Note
It is true that earth is not completely round, though that can be a challenge for students to understand. It can be helpful to liken the earth more like a bumpy spheroid than the round globes they may see on a stand, because of the rotation of the earth. Likewise, helping students understand the concept of the equatorial bulge could include viewing various videos available on YouTube that show the spinning of round objects at various speeds to show their change in shape. For those students who are interested in the contributions of Galileo, it may also be of interest that this scientific contribution was brought forward by Isaac Newton some 300 years before but received a mixed response. Some scientists then even insisted that in fact the earth was shaped more like a lemon and the surfaces at the two poles should be larger than those at the equator.
Students may also be interested to know that researchers looking at the issue use data from the twin Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites readings of the earth’s gravitational field. Researchers involved in measuring the amount of water in the ocean or changes in ice mass for climate change related issues use this information to measure and record such changes. Oceanographers, hydrologists, glaciologists, geologists and other scientists studying the phenomena that influence climate change also use the maps generated by satellite information and these are far more accurate than previous maps which help scientists to better understand these issues.
If you watch a wheel turning round quickly, you will see that the middle part, which is called the axle, is quite still. When a top is spinning its fastest, sleeping, as boys say, the very middle of the top, right through, down to the point, is still. So, if you could spin round quickly on your heels, you might imagine a line through the middle of you, from your head to your heels, upon which you spin. That middle line would be still while all the rest of you was in motion; just as the knitting needle was still when you turned the orange round on it.
Everything which turns round or rotates in this way turns on a still middle line; not a real line; the stillness is real, but the line is only imaginary. Such a line is called an axis. If you could turn round upon your heels, you would turn upon an axis. The top spins upon its axis. The earth spins or rotates upon her axis once in twenty-four hours. You remember that the earth is a little flattened at the top and bottom; the axis runs between the two flattened parts. The places
where the axis would come out if it were real, instead of an imaginary, line, are called poles. Your poles would be one at the top of your head, the other at your heels. The earth's poles are at the two flattened parts. One of the poles always points to a particular star in the heavens called the pole star, and that is the north pole of the earth; the pole at the other flattened end is the south pole.
As the ends of the earth, where the poles are, are slightly flattened, the middle between the poles bulges out a little, as you may have seen an orange bulge in the middle. Round this bulging middle, exactly between the two poles, there is another imaginary line called the equator, because it divides the earth into "equal" parts, and for another reason also. The equator helps us to know where places are, and you will find it marked upon all maps of the world. Sphere, as you know, is a name given to the earth because it is a round object; the word hemi means half; so half the earth is a hemisphere.
The equator divides the earth into two hemispheres or half spheres, as you might divide an orange into two hemispheres by tying a string round the middle. The half between the equator and the north pole is the northern hemisphere: the other half, between the equator and the south pole, is the southern hemisphere.
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Questions on Lessons 9 and 11
1. What is the earth's axis? - An imaginary line upon which the earth turns round or rotates.
2. Where is this line? - Through the middle of the earth, between the two flattened parts.
3. What are the poles? - The two ends of the axis, north and south.
4. In what time does the earth turn quite round? - In a day and night, that is, in twenty-four hours.
5. When have we day? - When our part of the world is turned to the sun.
6. When have we night? - When our part of the world has rolled round, from the sun.
7. What causes the change of day and night? - The rotation of the earth before the sun.
8. What is the equator? - An imaginary line round the middle of the earth between the two poles.
World Map Journal Activity
Include the North Pole, South Pole and the Equator on the World Map.
Make an entry on the World Map Journal by completing one notebooking oval to note the southern and northern hemispheres.
Shepherd all, and maidens fair, Fold your flocks up for the air 'Gins to thicken, and the sun Already his great course had run. See the dewdrops how they kiss Every little flower that is Hanging on there velvet heads Like a rope of crystal beads. See the heavy clouds low falling, And bright Hesperus down calling The dead night from underground. Fletcher
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Lesson 26 - Mid-Day Lines Guide Note
In helping students understand where Greenwich is and how the International Dateline operates, it is important to ensure that they realise it is an imagined line. Understanding that the line is also not exactly straight can also be an interesting point for students to discover. Looking at the International Dateline near Kiribati may interest students, with the island being exactly halfway around the world from Greenwich. Students will notice that the line, on the 180 degree meridian, is not exactly straight. Until 1995 the International Date Line cut the group of islands of Kiribati into two halves. This meant that the western part of the republic was 24 hours ahead of the eastern part, thus the people would have had different calendar dates for the same 24-hour time. In 1995 the International Date Line was amended to run on the eastern boundary of Kiribati’s islands. A map showing the correct Line juts out sharply to the east compared to the previous alignment. Students may like to compare Kiribati to Hawaii (further north in the Pacific Ocean and relatively close on a map) and note that this shift means that while it might be a Tuesday in Kiribati, it is still Monday in Hawaii.
Parents may choose to alter Mason’s original wording in the fourth paragraph of “We English people number the meridian lines from Greenwich” to note that all people number the meridian lines from Greenwich. Students interested in standing on the meridian line may wish to look at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich in more detail and further information is provided on their website: http://www.rmg.co.uk/royal-observatory
Such lines as we have imagined between the flattened ends of an orange to join together the parts that roll into the light at the same time, are supposed to be drawn from pole to pole on the earth’s surface, passing through the equator.
Each of these lines passes through all the places that have their noon, or mid-day, at the same time. It is noon at any place because that part of the earth has rolled forward so as to come under the sun. As the whole earth from north to south rolls forward at once, all places exactly north or south of one another have mid-day at the same moment. The imaginary lines passing through such places are called meridians. The word meridian means “mid-day,” and meridians are mid-day lines. They are the lines marked on globes and maps running from north to south.
These meridian lines are of great use, as they enable us to judge how far places are from each other, east and west. By means of the equator and the lines which run parallel with it, we know how far north or south of the equator any place
lies. But we might search all round the globe before we found a place a certain number of degrees north of the equator, if we did not know which meridian line went through it.
We English people number the meridian lines from Greenwich, a place near London. The line which runs from pole to pole and passes through Greenwich is the first meridian. Every place exactly north and south of Greenwich, all the way to the poles, has the first meridian passing through it, and has noon at the same time as ourselves. There is a meridian line to measure off every degree upon the equator, though they are not always all marked upon maps. The distance between places east and west, is called longitude.
All parts of the world that lie to the east of Greenwich are in east longitude. The rest of the world, the half that lies to the west of Greenwich, is in west longitude. The meridians are marked 2 degrees W. or 25 degrees W., according to the number of degrees they are west of Greenwich; or, 50 degrees E. long., if they lie so far to the east of Greenwich. Places east of Greenwich, or in east longitude have their noon before we do, because they turn towards the sun in the morning before we do. All places in west longitude have their noon later.
If a sailor knows that a place is so many degrees to the north of the equator, and so many degrees to the east of Greenwich, he knows exactly where to look for it. How he is able to guide his ship to the very point he wants to reach, you will learn in your next lesson.
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Appendix One – Australian Curriculum Australian home educators may want to consider the resource in the Australian Curriculum in both the Science (Earth and Space Science theme) and Geography contexts. The following tables are provided for Australian users to see how this resource matches with the current Australian Curriculum (v.8.2). In considering the Australian Curriculum content for Geography, the website http://www.geogspace.edu.au/ may be of interest to parents. Year 2 - Learning Achievement Standards By the end of Year 2 students recognise that the world is divided into geographic divisions and that places can be described at different scales.
They sequence familiar objects and events in order and sort and record data in tables, plans and on labelled maps.
Year 2 - Geography – Knowledge & Understanding
Year 2 - Geography – Inquiry & Skills – Analysing
The way the world is represented in geographic divisions and the location of Australia in relation to these divisions (ACHASSK047). The idea that places are parts of Earth’s surface that have been named by people, and how places can be defined at a variety of scales (ACHASSK048).
Interpret data and information displayed in pictures and texts and on maps (ACHASSI007, ACHASSI024, ACHASSI040).
Comment Students reading Elementary Geography prepare a World Map Journal which includes marking the division of earth into geographical divisions, including climatic classifications and hemispheres. A discussion on the variety and scale of maps is included within the text, from a world-wide view, continents, countries, states and territories, towns and a plan of a room. The exploration and naming of places is addressed also.
Year 3 – Learning Achievement Standards Geography - They record and represent data in different formats, including labelled maps using basic cartographic conventions.
Science - By the end of Year 3, students use their understanding of the movement of Earth, materials and the behaviour of heat to suggest explanations for everyday observations.
Year 3 Geography – Knowledge & Understanding The main climate types of the world and the similarities and differences between the climates of different places (ACHASSK068). Year 3 – Science – Science Understanding – Earth and Space Sciences Earth’s rotation on its axis causes regular changes, including night and day (ACSSU048). Comment Elementary Geography includes explanation on the movement of the earth in an easy conversational style. It also covers climatic classification and mapping exercises on this topic. Labelling maps and learning basic cartographic conventions, including a compass rose and scale is also covered.
Year 4 –Learning Achievement Standards By the end of Year 4 they sort, record and represent data in different formats, including large-scale maps using basic cartographic conventions. Year 4 – Humanities and Social Sciences - Geography - Inquiry & Skills Record, sort and represent data and the location of places and their characteristics in different formats, including simple graphs, tables and maps, using discipline-appropriate conventions (ACHASSI054, ACHASSI075). Comment Provided the content for Years 2 and 3 has been completed by the student, in Year 4 the content for Elementary Geography is best used with a focus on the mapping exercises and appreciating the scale and different types of mapping,
Year 5 – Learning Achievement Standards By the end of Year 5 students describe the key features of our solar system.
They sort, record and represent data in different formats, including large-scale and small-scale maps, using basic conventions.
Year 5 – Science – Science Understanding - Earth and Space Sciences The Earth is part of a system of planets orbiting around a star (the sun) (ACSSU078). Comment As with Year 4, the content of Elementary Geography for a Year 5 student is particularly within the mapping exercises undertaken through reading the course. Also, when Year 5 students commence their study of space science do repeat the lessons covering this content, such as Lessons 6, 7, 9 and 11.
