Unit Plan 1 (Grade 6 Social Studies): The World Around Us
Build foundational geography skills with an engaging week on global regions, hemispheres, latitude/longitude, and essential map tools—helping Grade 6 students locate places accurately, estimate distances with scale, and justify regional groupings through clear, evidence-based mapping.
Focus: Introduce global regions, hemispheres, and essential map tools (title, legend, scale, latitude/longitude, grid) to analyze location, distance, and direction.
Grade Level: 6
Subject Area: Social Studies (Geography • Inquiry)
Total Unit Duration: 5 sessions (one week), 50–60 minutes per session
I. Introduction
Students launch the year by building a shared map toolkit: how to read and make maps with titles, legends, scales, and coordinate grids; how to place locations in hemispheres; and how to group places into regions using physical and cultural criteria. By week’s end, they create a mini-atlas page that proves “where” with coordinates, “how far” with scale, and “why grouped” with regional evidence.
Essential Questions
- How do map tools help us answer where something is and how far it is from something else?
- What makes a region—and why do different people draw regions differently?
- How do hemispheres and coordinates organize our understanding of the world?
II. Objectives and Standards
Learning Objectives — Students will be able to:
- Use and create maps with title, legend, scale, latitude/longitude, and grid coordinates to locate places and estimate distances.
- Classify areas into world regions using physical (landforms, climate) and cultural (language, religion, economy) criteria and justify choices.
- Frame and pursue geographic questions about location, distance, and regional patterns.
Standards Alignment — 6th Grade (C3-based custom)
- 6.C3.Geo.1: Identify/compare world regions with physical & cultural criteria.
- 6.C3.Geo.2: Use/create maps with titles, legends, scale, latitude/longitude, and grid to analyze location, distance, direction.
- 6.C3.Inq.1: Frame compelling/supporting questions about places and past societies.
Success Criteria — Student Language
- I can pinpoint a place with latitude/longitude and name its hemispheres.
- I can estimate distance using a map scale and explain my method.
- I can group places into a region and defend my criteria with evidence.