Title: City Lesson Plan322

Key Words: City, Urbanization

National and State Standards: National, #3 State #11.10.2

Teaching Level: High

: The students will:
Describe the patterns and processes of urbanization
Explain patterns of urban land use

Materials: Goodes World Atlas or other comprehensive atlas


1. Have the students get into pre-assigned learning groups. They are given a list of 5 major cities on one continent ( each group will be given a different continent) . Give them a few minutes to find these major cities in their atlases. They then will be asked to pick one of the cities to pick for further study.

2.Explain that we are going to investigate why these cities are "great". Give them all of the riddle sheets (see attached), and explain that once they have figured out all of the riddles they will be able to figure out what makes a great city great. They will then research these elements of their cities to determine if they really are great .

3.Give the students at least 30 minutes to try and figure out the riddles giving hints to particular groups if needed. This method was chosen because the students would not find the assignment of discovering why a city is great as particularly challenging because they would not dig deep enough and they would conclude that there are not particular criteria for all cities.

4.After all of the groups have discovered the answers to the riddles they would go to the library to research all those aspects of their particular city .

Evaluation /Assessment : Group teaching presentations to the other groups with each group making up a city quiz for the other teams.

Extension/Enrichment: Lecture on the development of cities throughout civilization and the impact that geography had on that development.

Thank you.
The authors.

Riddle Sheet

I snake and I twine but I'm usually at the heart of the every city

One will get you two or not. Three will get you something I think. You have to try or you won't succeed.

Bikinis or beaver hats. Umbrellas and sunscreen. You're going to need something to brave the -------?
'm old and I'm young. I'm rich and he's famous. Even though you won't admit it you need us.
(population base)

You can get there from here.
(Geographic centricity)

I'm a Chameleon and it keeps me alive.

You can sing and you can dance and you can do most anything
(cultural diversity)

You're thoughts are yours and possibly mine.
(political ideology)

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Original file name: 322 (Converted) - converted on Tuesday, 20 October 1998, 20:56
