Standard 1: The World in Spatial Terms

Students will learn about school zones, calculate enrollment for a school that is “overcrowded”, and discuss ideas for rezoning to balance enrollments by looking at vacancies in other schools in this integrated lesson plan.

Type: Lesson Plan

Growing Green, Inc. is planning to expand their business into Florida. The client has specific criteria for selecting a good location to set up their new fertilizer manufacturing plant. This project will familiarize students with some of Florida's natural resources (with a great emphasis on phosphate) and will present students with opportunities to interpret different types of maps.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. MEAs resemble engineering problems and encourage students to create solutions in the form of mathematical and scientific models. Students work in teams to apply their knowledge of science and mathematics to solve an open-ended problem while considering constraints and tradeoffs. Students integrate their ELA skills into MEAs as they are asked to clearly document their thought processes. MEAs follow a problem-based, student-centered approach to learning, where students are encouraged to grapple with the problem while the teacher acts as a facilitator. To learn more about MEAs visit: https://www.cpalms.org/cpalms/mea.aspx

Type: Lesson Plan

The governor of Florida needs your students' help in distributing funds among Florida cities. Students will be asked to share a sum of money for hurricane preparedness systems among Florida cities. Students will be given a data set to help them develop a procedure for doing so. In their teams, they will write a letter to the governor of Florida giving their procedures and explanation of the strategy they used. Rubrics are included to help grade students on their writing.

Type: Lesson Plan

This Engineering Design Challenge is intended to help fourth grade students apply the concepts of the flow of heat from a hot object to a cold object and that heat flow may cause objects to change temperature. It is not intended as an initial introduction to this benchmark.

Type: Lesson Plan

What’s your vector, Victor? Understanding math and wind helps get you where you want to go.

Related Resources:
KROS Pacific Ocean Kayak Journey: GPS Data Set[.XLSX]
KROS Pacific Ocean Kayak Journey: Path Visualization for Google Earth[.KML]

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

Learn about the exciting work of NOAA's Hurricane Hunters, who fly aircraft through hurricanes to collect weather data that helps us learn about the storms and predict their development to help the public prepare for their impacts in this PowerPoint eReader.

Type: Presentation/Slideshow

Ivonne Blank immigrated to the United States in 1961 as part of Operation Pedro Pan, the largest exodus on unaccompanied minors in the Western Hemisphere. Ms. Blank talks about how difficult it was waiting for her parents and living in an orphanage in Denver, CO. Her parents later left the island by boat, were rescued by the Coast Guard, and resettled in the United States. After the family was reunited, they were able to rebuild their lives with support from their community. Ms. Blank went on to become a lifelong educator and U.S. citizen.

Type: Video/Audio/Animation