Teaching Tools: Geography (Charles River)
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Watershed Mapping
Have students research the Charles River Watershed (Drainage Basin), using library reference materials and/or the link below. Have them gather enough facts and to draw their own Charles River Watershed maps.
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Watershed Quiz
Have students answer the following questions about the Charles River Watershed (perhaps using the facts gathered during the "Watershed Mapping" exercise suggested above):
How long is the river?
Where does the river begin?
What is the name of the town at the halfway point?
Where does the river end?
How many dams are on the Charles River?
How many square miles does it drain?
What body of water does it empty into?
Meanders
The Charles River rises in Hopkinton, Massachusetts and flows eighty miles to the Atlantic Ocean (Boston Harbor). Have students find Hopkinton on a map (perhaps you can mention that the Boston Marathon starts in Hopkinton). Ask students to determine how far Hopkinton is from Boston Harbor--in a straight line. Now compare this number to the length of the river. Ask students why they think the two numbers are different. Discuss questions like: Why do rivers flow in a given direction? What does a river do when it meets a cliff or hill? What is a river valley? What is a meander? Be sure to explain that the path of the Charles is always downhill, and why.
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Teaching Tools: Geography (Lake Champlain)
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Deep Water
The deepest spot in Lake Champlain is 400 feet. It is located just off Split Rock Point in Essex, New York. However, the lake level varies from season to season and year to year. The average level is about 95 feet above sea level. The lowest recorded level was 91.9 feet above sea level in 1909. The Highest recording was taken in 1976 at 101.62 feet. This makes Lake Champlain the lowest point in Vermont.
Create an exercise where students research heights and depths related to their own experience of the Lake Champlain Basin. Sample questions that could be answered by using local nautical charts or topo maps include:
What is the water depth where you typically swim/boat/fish on Lake Champlain?
What is the highest point in Vermont? In the Lake Champlain Basin?
How far is your school above sea level? Lake level?
What is the average depth of Lake Champlain?
American Island
Did you know that Lake Champlain is part of a waterway thread that turns the eastern United States into an island? Can you track it? If you could build a canoe and travel the entire route, in what places would you stop? Why?
Walk the years
This activity is best done in a gymnasium or outside. It shows time in relation to the creation of Lake Champlain. Since this is difficult to grasp, “walking the years” as a series of steps helps. The steps give a scale that the students can relate to.
Have the students make big signs with the following information:
1. Earth formed 4,600,000,000 years ago.
2. Adirondack Mountains formed 1,100,000,000 – 1,400,000,000 years ago.
3. Green Mountains formed 450,000,000 years ago.
4. Atlantic Ocean opens 200,000,000 years ago.
5. Glaciers advanced over North America 100,000 years ago.
6. Lake Champlain formed 8,000 years ago.
Explain that one step equals 50 million years. Pick a starting point and have a student hold a sign and “move back in time.” The spacing of students on this large timeline gives them a reference point to talk about geologic time.
1. Earth formed = 90 steps
2. Adirondack Mountains formed = 25 steps
3. Green Mountains formed = 9 steps
4. Atlantic Ocean formed = 4 steps
5. Glaciers advanced over North America = sideways step
6. Lake Champlain = balance on your toes
For all grades, the Echo Center in Burlington offers an extensive outreach program on geography and current issues facing Lake Champlain. More information may be found at:
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Teaching Tools: Geography (Hudson River)
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| photo: Christopher Swain |
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Natural Regions (greenteacher.com)
Research which natural region of the Hudson River Valley your school is located in (Highlands, Adirondacks, Estuary, etc.). Show the students this region on a large scale topographical map. Investigate which plant and animal communities inhabited this area before any significant human development occurred. Then ask the students to brainstorm the ways in which human development have changed the area. Ask them what happened to the many animals that used to live in this area.
Indigenous Place Names (Robert H. Boyle)
Many place names in the Hudson River Valley are anglicized versions of Native American place names. Manhattan, “the island”; Schenectady, from the Iroquois SKA-NEH-TA-DE, originally applied to the Albany area and meaning “beyond the opening” or “beyond the pine trees”, probably in reference to the Karner sand plains: Cohoes, “canoe falling”; Copake, “snake pond”; Taconic, “full of timber”; Poughkeepsie, possibly “safe harbor”; Hoosick, “place of stones”; Schodack, “place of fire,” because this island in the Hudson was the traditional Mohican capitol and site of the council fire; Hackensack, “lowland”; Tappan, “cold springs”; Croton, from KENOTIN, “wind” or “tempest”; Sing Sing, from SITSINK, meaning, prophetically, in view of the prison, “stone upon stone.”
Discuss these place names with students. Do they fit with the student’s existing topographical sense of these places? Choose a few less familiar places and let students find them on large-scale topographic maps. Does their topography support the name (Is Poughkeepsie a good harbor? Is Hackensack a lowland?) Need topo maps? Create them online at:
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Indigenous spheres of influence (Robert H. Boyle)
In 1600, within the Hudson Valley, the people called Algonquin were formed into three loose confederacies: the Mohican, which occupied both sides of the river south of Albany; the Delaware, on the west shore south from present-day Catskill into New Jersey; and the Wappinger which ran from Poughkeepsie south to Manhattan (and included, among others, the Manhattan tribe). The Montauk, a separate confederation, ruled Long Island.
Have students draw a simple map of the Hudson Valley, including Manhattan and Long Island. Have them shade or draw in the different spheres of influence of each of these confederations.
Tell students that in 1600, according to one Smithsonian ethnographer, there were about 3,000 Mohicans; 4,750 Wappingers, including those in Connecticut; 8,000 Delawares, and 6,000 Montauks, including the Canarsees in Brooklyn. Ask students how many of these peoples remain today? What happened to them? Where are they now?
American Revolution Sites
This activity is based on this link:
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Materials:
1. Topographical map for each student with key. Teacher Note: Children should have previously learned how to read a topographical map.
Objective(s):
1. Students will locate and label major sites related to the Revolutionary War in the Hudson River Valley.
2. Students will examine the topographical features of each site and list a few of these features.
3. Students will list two advantages of each military site.
Opening:
1. Activate prior knowledge relative to topographical features on maps.
Body:
1. Working in groups, students use geographical clues to locate and label major American Revolutionary War battle sites and strategic locations of the Hudson River Valley. (If relevant, have students find their own hometown on the map.
2. After placing the sites on the map, students in groups examine the geographical features of each site and make a list of what they observe from the map.
3. In groups, students will speculate about and list the possible military advantages of each site.
Closure:
1. With the teacher, students can compare their speculations of the military advantages with those of military historians.
Follow-up activity:
1. If relevant, have students write their own clues to help others locate their town on the map.
2. Have each student choose one revolutionary site and explain what topographical and tactical advantages it would have offered (ease of defense, control of a waterway, etc.).
Manhattan Before (Robert H. Boyle)
In the 1600’s, Manhattan was once more irregular in outline than it is now. The island was indented with bays, creeks, coves and marshes. The curve of Pearl Street follows the original shoreline of the East River. The Hudson River ran where Greenwich Street is today. Harlem was a meadow. Minetta Brook, which flowed through Washington Square in Manhattan and emptied into the Hudson, was fed by two streams, one arising near Sixth Avenue and Seventeenth Street, the other at Fifth avenue and Twentieth. (Trout were caught in Minetta Brook until the late eighteenth century.) Paved over now, the water of Minetta Brook surfaces in the lobby fountains of two apartment houses, at 33 Washington Square West and at 2 Fifth Avenue (or at least it still did in 1979).
Have students draw a map of Manhattan in the 1600’s, using the path of Pearl and Greenwich Streets to restore a semblance of the original shoreline. Make sure they leave off The Battery. If they like, have them draw in Harlem as a meadow, or the course of Minetta Brook.
Find the tributary field trip: Are the waters of Minetta Brook still visible? Trace part of the course of Minetta Brook on foot; visit the apartment houses mentioned above (with permission of course).
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