Geography: 1. Geospatial Skills

People use geographic representations and geospatial technologies to acquire, process and report information within a spatial context.

Benchmark: Students will obtain and analyze geographic information from print and electronic resources to investigate a place or answer a specific geographic question 8.3.1.1.1. (Skills)

Geography: 2. Places and Regions

Places have physical characteristics (such as climate, topography, and vegetation) and human characteristics (such as culture, population, political and economic systems).

Benchmark: Students will use geographic tools to analyze and explain the distribution of physical and human characteristics of places 8.3.2.3.1

Geography: 3. Human Systems

Geographic factors influence the distribution, functions, growth and patterns of cities and human settlements.

Benchmark: Students will describe how the physical and environmental features of Latin America affect human activity and settlement 8.3.3.6.2

ACTIVITY: The Worldmapper website is a great resource to have students manipulate data to see some of the human characteristics of places and regions within Latin America. Teachers should direct students to think about how Latin America's physical geography might impact these human characteristics.

Worldmapper is a collection of world maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest. There are nearly 700 maps.

• Use 'Map Categories' or 'Thumbnail Index' to choose a map
• Examples include:

• Movement
• Transport
• Food
• Goods
• Manufacturers
• Services
• Resources
• Fuel
• Production
• Work
• Income
• Wealth
• Poverty
• Housing
• Education
• Health
• Disease
• Disaster
• Death
• Destruction
• Violence
• Pollution
• Depletion
• Communication
• Exploitation
• Action
• Cause of Death
• Age of Death
• Religion
• Language

Below is an example of a map created from this website that shows Yellow Fever throughout the world. What do you notice about Yellow Fever in Latin America? What connection do you see between Yellow Fever and Latin America's physical geography? (Possible discussion questions)

Your teacher may have you explore categories independently or have you all work together as a class.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS:

1. After exploring the World Mapper Website, describe how the cartographers used size, shape, and color to display country data and organize information on the reference maps.

2. Go to Map Categories and click on the topic Transport and then click Cargo Shipping. Look specifically at the region of Latin America. What is one observation you can make about cargo shipping based upon your interpretation of data displayed on the map, information found on this page, and your prior knowledge. Be specific.

3. Click World Population Atlas: Gridded Population Cartogram:

Click on the country of Brazil. Describe the human population settlement patterns as displayed in this cartogram (population Map). In other words, describe where most of the people live? What areas are the least populated? What physical features or environmental issues do you think contributed to the areas of higher or lower population?