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Candyland Elementary School Land Cover

Unit Plan: Mapping: What's on the Whole SchoolyardLesson: 4 Time: 1 class period Setting: Classroom
3-5Schoolyard Ecology
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Objectives

Aerial photographs can aid in determining land use types. Land cover types can be measured by using a grid overlay to aid in determining percent coverage. Students will learn how transition from gaining information from a 3-dimensional model to gaining information from an overhead 2-dimensional view.

    Overview
    Rating:

    Students will determine the percentage of land use types from “aerial photographs” of personally designed models.

    Materials

    (Students work in pairs)

    • “Aerial photograph” of students’ model
    • Grid transparency
    • Clear tape
    • Pencil and paper
    • Calculator
    • Transparency marker
       
    1. Using a digital camera, take an overhead photo of each model.  On the computer, crop each photograph to fit an 8.5 X 11 sheet of paper. Print the photos using a color printer.
    2. Students receive photos of their models and other materials. The following procedure should be modeled on the overhead: Using tape, overlay the grid transparency on the photo. For each square, the students determine the color that covers the majority of the square. A tally is kept to keep track of the number of each color of square. On the transparency sheet, squares should be marked with an “X” to show that they have been tallied.
    3. Students add up the total number of squares counted. To determine the percentage of each land use type, divide each type (ex: number of yellow squares) by the total number of squares.
    4. Students look to see which cover types accounted for the greatest and least percentage of their models, and compare with classmates. Tell them that their next task will be to do this again, but from a real aerial photograph taken of their school. What do they think will be different in the process? What will be the same?
       

    Lesson Files

    pdf
    Candyland Chart Handout

    Benchmarks for Science Literacy

    1B Scientific Inquiry, 2A Patterns and Relationships, 9B Symbolic Representation, 11B Models, 11D Scale, 12B Computation and Estimation

    NYS Standards

    MST 1 - Mathematical analysis, scientific inquiry, and engineering design, MST 3- Mathematics in real-world settings, MST 6- Interconnectedness of mathematics, science, and technology (modeling, systems, scale, change, equilibrium, optimization)
    Next Generation Science Standards

    Science and Engineering Practices

    Asking questions and defining problems, Developing and using models, Planning and carrying out investigations

    Cross Cutting Concepts

    Patterns, Cause and effect