Name:  _____________   Date:  _____________    Age/Grade Level:  Secondary

Subject:  Social Studies  # of Students: 20 (groups of 4) # of IEP Students:  _____

Major content:  Social Studies                    Unit Title:  Geography Horse

 

ACTIONS  _____________

Goals and Objectives-

To have students develop a variety of skills (scholastically and physically) through shooting basketballs and testing students’ geography knowledge in a competitive manner while developing a sense of fair play.  This activity helps students with pressure situations, comprehension of directions, organization, and geography of course.

Connections-

1.2       Students make sense of the variety of materials they read.  – Information read and maps studied from handouts are necessary to know for success in activity.

1.3       Students make sense of the various things they observe. – As the students play the game, they will notice that they don’t necessarily have to be good at basketball to achieve success in the activity.

 

Context-

This activity’s purpose is to better familiarize students with American geography.  Ideally, this fun activity allows students to not only have fun while playing basketball, but to review material already covered in class.

Resources-

1-2 Basketballs and a ½ court sized stencil of the United States per group

Procedures-

Four students will take turns shooting the b-ball standing on a specific state.  One must both make the shot and correctly identify the state they are standing in to be given the opportunity for having someone match the shot.  To match a made shot, the other students must make a shot from a bordering state after naming it (except the southern border…   no closer/easier shots allowed!!).  In the event of a missed shot, to avoid the accumulation of letters, the student must identify the capital of the state they are occupying.  In case the game goes on too long and there are no open states, you simply start over.

Student Assessment-

Students will be assessed mainly upon effort, but will also include providing a record of how many games they were a horse compared to how many times they were nothing.  Effort will be observed by the teacher, and the records provided by the students will portray their knowledge of state geography.