Lesson Title: Changes in the Landscape: Using Topographic Maps

Author: Eileen Taylor

Author Info: West High School, Salt Lake City, Utah

Grade: 9-12

Time Needed: One to two class periods.

Overview: In this lesson, students will examine two aerial photographs of the same quadrant in order to identify changes in the built environment. Although this lesson is written primarily for AP high school students, this lesson could easily be adapted to use with much younger students.

Definitions of Key Terms:
Cultural Landscape: The features constructed by humans that form part of the visible environment.
Scale: The relation of a feature's size on a map to its actual size on Earth's surface.
Built Environment: A term that may be used synonymously with cultural landscape but which usually refer to the high density of man-made features in urban places.

Objectives: Students will:
1. Define key words of the lesson.
2. Understand "scale".
3. Read an aerial photograph.
4. Identify and predict changes in the landscape.
5. Write a short essay.

Materials:
Aerial Photographs of the same quadrant in two different scales and taken at different times (at least 20 years apart). These photographs need to be of an area that is familiar to the students. They can be obtained from a private, state or federal aerial photography agency.

Activities:

1. Discuss all key terms.
2. Have students, with a partner, examine a current aerial photograph in order to locate identifiable landmarks such as school, home, landmarks, certain large buildings, etc..
3. Have students, with a partner, examine an aerial photograph of the same area, taken at least twenty years earlier, to find at least ten differences in the cultural landscape--for example, freeway changes, buildings not yet built, buildings torn down, etc.
4. Have a teacher led discussion about the differences in these two photographs.

Evaluation:

Have students write a short essay describing the changes that have occurred in the intervening time and the changes that they think might occur in the next twenty to thirty years and why.

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