Geography curriculum?

Hi Peter! I'm sure others will comment with thoughts on their own classrooms, but I wanted to share a few OER Project resources just in case you weren't aware of them.

We have topic pages for Maps and for Middle School Geography. The latter of those features our Big History geography activities.

We have a collection of political, thematic, and regional maps that are all available here. We will be adding more maps to this collection over the spring and summer. We're also working on new geography activities this spring and summer, but in the meantime, you can find our old collection of "Maptivities." These might be a little complex for 9th graders, but we got a lot of demands for their return, so we've kept them available here, along with their location in each course and unit.

Hi Peter Elliott , we've got a few things that might help with teaching geography for 9th graders. First is the Middle School Geography page that would also work for 9th grade. This page has a bunch of resources including a lesson plan, NGS-Big History alignment doc, blog, community post, and Big History activities that help students improve their geographic thinking skills. Then, we have a Geography and Maps page that also has a lesson plan, blog, activities, and a document that lists all the maps we have at OER Project.

There are many OER Project teachers in the community who teach geography and I think they'll be able to provide some words of wisdom. Laura Massa Anne Koschmider Rachel Hansen Donnetta Elsasser 

I use the maps to tell a story at the beginning of a unit. OER used to have an incredible sequence for this that I have found and still use for all my World History classes. Bennett Sherry has shared them here, and they are WONDERFUL at that first day of the unit. 

We do a mapping game out of them, share with the class, and then make predications how the map will change over the unit. 

I'm on the same wavelength as Drew. Michigan standards are for World History & Geography, so I take an integrated approach. I still use a few of the "maptivities" from the previous version of the course (typically at the beginning of a unit) in addition to the materials Bennett mentioned. 

One more thought - it would be more of a supplement than a cohesive curriculum, but Retro Report has some nice resources in their Geography collection.