Geography Standard Four - Grades 9-12

Sample Activities

Using a map of American voting patterns in past elections, students might develop a report concerning the use of different types of regions in understanding how voting works and its consequences. The report would consider the value of choosing different types of regions: uniform (the same from border to border, such as a voting district where all votes count the same), nodal (the center is the most important, the periphery less significant, such as Dover and its surrounding service area), and perceptual (a region only in people's minds, such as dividing Delaware into two regions north and south of the Canal) [Regions].

Using a map of the local area and plotting different types of regions, such as city and county political boundaries, zip codes, school districts, and newspaper delivery areas, students might consider the implications of overlapping boundaries on individual households, and suggest an improved and simplified set of boundaries [Regions].

This activity addressed the nature of "gerrymandering" and demonstrates the geographical underpinnings of redistricting, and the decennial issue which falls under Civics Standard One.

Students could be asked to apply the concept of region to the solution of practical problems, such as the location of public libraries based on attendance boundaries, or assessing the impact of aquifer recharge regions on zoning land for new housing developments.

to Geography Standard Four.