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Map Your Favorite Sports Team's Next Road Trip

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Subjects

  • Social Sciences
  • Math

Grades

  • 3-5
  • 6-8
  • 9-12

Brief Description

Students track a professional sports team across the country.

Objectives

Students
  • correctly read a map scale,
  • use a map scale to calculate the number of miles covered by a sports team in a trip,
  • calculate the cost of a trip.

Keywords

geography, sports team, road trip, map, map scale

Materials Needed

  • sports section of a newspaper or game schedules of local sports teams
  • computers with Internet access
  • copies of U.S. road maps
  • paper
  • pens or pencils

Lesson Plan

  • Ask students to name their favorite sports teams. Help students check the sports section of the newspaper, game schedules, or team Web sites to find out where the teams will play upcoming road trips.
  • Hand out U.S. maps, and challenge students to trace the route the team will take on the road trip. Have students use the scale of miles to figure out the number of miles the team will cover in that trip.
  • Have older students use Web pages of national airlines to figure out how much it would cost them to go along on the road trip!

    Variation: Have older students work against one another in teams. Have each team search a variety of airline sites to determine the most cost-effective flights. The team who completes the challenge with the lowest fares wins!

    Assessment

    Observe students' participation in the activity. Evaluate students' map-reading skills

    Lesson Plan Source

    Education World

    Submitted By

    Gary Hopkins

    National Standards

    Social Science:
    NSS-G.K-12.1
    NSS-G.K-12.2

    Math:
    NM.K-4.1
    NM.K-4.4
    NM.K-4.8
    NM.5-8.1
    NM.5-8.4
    NM.5-8.7
    NM.9-12.1
    NM.9-12.4