Oakland County and Metropolitan Detroit as Regional Communities

Benchmark

Locate their county and metropolitan Detroit and describe the relative location of each (V.1.LE.3).

  Key Concept

    regional community

  Materials needed

    Equipment/Manipulative

    A desk outline map of Michigan counties

    Maps of Metropolitan Detroit

    A Michigan Counties map

    Overhead projector

    Sweeney, Joan. Me on the Map. New York: Crown Publishers, 1996.

Teacher Resource

City of Detroit Official Web Site. 6 June 2001 http://www.ci.detroit.mi.us/.

Detroit Metropolitan Area Map. Visit Detroit. 6 June 2001 http://www.visitdetroit.com/common/detroitmetromap.pdf.

Metro Detroit Map. Jody Green Website. 8 June 2001 http://www.jodygreen.com/map/map.html.

  U.S. Metropolitan Area Maps. Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection. 6 June 2001 http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/usmet.html.

  U.S. Metropolitan Maps. ReiseNett. 6 June 2001 http://www.reisenett.no/map_collection/usmet.html.

Procedure:

1. Review the definition of a regional community with the students. A regional community is made up of other communities. It is smaller than a state. The communities within the regional community share some common characteristics such as a system of roads and providing common services to the people living there. Ask the students to brainstorm the various ways that metropolitan areas and counties are examples of regional communities. Record student answers on the chalkboard or overhead.

2. Give the students an outline map of Michigan showing the counties. Have them use red to color the county in which they live. Ask the students what other counties border their county. For example, if the school is located in Oakland County, the bordering counties would include Macomb, Lapeer, Genessee, Livingston, Washtenaw, and Wayne. Have the students color the bordering counties in green.

3. Review the concept of “relative location” by discussing how places can be described in relationship to other places. Ask the students to describe their relative location in the room. Some sample answers may include near the door, across from Mark, or in the front of the room.

4. Ask the students to look at the Michigan counties map and describe the relative location of the county in which they live. For example, if the students live in Oakland County, they might describe its relative location as the southeastern part of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Discuss the students’ answers.

5. Ask the students how else they might describe the relative location of the county in which they live. Guide them toward the idea that they could describe their county’s location in relationship to other counties. Working in pairs, have the students write three ways to describe the location of their county in relation to its neighboring counties. For example, Oakland County is west of Macomb County. Have the pairs share their answers with the entire class.

6. Pass out copies of a map of Michigan showing major cities. Ask the students to locate Detroit on the map. Next, ask the students to locate the Detroit Metropolitan area on the map. Provide time for the students to grapple with this request. Using an overhead, display a copy of the map for the class. Ask the students to share what they see as the location of Metropolitan Detroit for the class on the overhead map. Student descriptions of locations should vary.

7. Remind the students that a metropolitan area consists of a large city and surrounding areas including towns, other cities, and suburbs. Have the students view two maps of Metropolitan Detroit. For example, students can view a Metropolitan Detroit map from the Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection website and from the Jody Green Web site. Discuss what communities have been included in the area, such as Royal Oak and Dearborn. Have the students describe how the two maps differ.

8. Ask the students what differences they notice about the boundaries of counties and metropolitan areas. Direct student discussion toward the understanding that counties have defined borders whereas metropolitan areas do not. Therefore, people may disagree about the extent of a metropolitan area and two maps of a specific metropolitan area may be different because different criteria were used to determine the extent of the metropolitan region.

9. Ask the students to use what they learned in this lesson to create a list of ways to describe the relative location of the Metropolitan Detroit region. Some examples may include:

It is in the southeastern part of the lower peninsula of Michigan.It is in parts of Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties.It is across the international border and Detroit River from Windsor, Ontario.

Assessment

Students could identify the approximate location of the county in which they live and Metropolitan Detroit on a blank Michigan map. For a more formal assessment, students could write three sentences describing the relative location of the county in which they live and three sentences describing the relative location of Metropolitan Detroit.

Connections

  Mathematics : When students explore maps they use direction, scale, and orientation.