Topic: Basic forms of the Earth's surface highlighted on maps

Author: Magdalena Jankun

Target group

5th‑grade students of elementary school

Core curriculum

5th grade

III. Lands and oceans on the Earth: distribution of lands and oceans, the first geographical expeditions.

The student:

3) shows large forms of the shape of the Earth's surface and sea areas on the routes of the first geographical expeditions.

The general aim of education

The students learn about the forms of the Earth's surface.

Criteria of success

• You will name large forms of the Earth's surface and the forms of the ocean floor;

• define their characteristics;

• show them on the map.

Key competences

• communication in the mother tongue;

• communication in a foreign language;

• mathematical competences;

• digital competence;

• learning to learn;

• social and civic competences.

Methods / forms of work

Work with text and with multimedia.

Individual work and work in pairs.

Teaching aids

• abstract;

• interactive or traditional board;

• multimedia projector;

• tablets/computers;

• Google Earth;

• physical map of world;

• geographical atlases.

Lesson plan overview (Process)

Introduction

1. The teacher presents the topic, lesson goal and criteria of success.

2. The teacher displays pictures depicting various forms of the Earth's surface: mountains, highlands and lowlands, on the interactive whiteboard.

Realization

1. On the basis of the material contained in the abstract, the students write definitions of the following terms:

• depression;

• lowland;

• upland;

• mountains.

The students indicated by the teacher read their notes on the class forum.

2. The teacher asks the students to look at the physical map of world and, using the hipsometric colour scale, determine the colour of mountains, highlands, lowlands and depression. The students approach the map one by one and read examples of large forms of the Earth's surface.

3. The teacher launches the Google Earth and presents the areas indicated on the physical map of world - mountains (e.g. the Alps), uplands (e.g. the Kraków‑Częstochowa Upland), and lowlands (e.g. the Greater Poland Lowland).

4. The Students, working in pairs and using geographical atlases and Internet resources, check their knowledge of large forms of Earth's surface in Europe: they ask each other 10 questions (once a person, a second time), referring to the location of selected areas on the map. One point is assigned for each correct answer. The person from the pair who will collect more points wins. An example question: On what continent is the Tibetan Plateau? Point it on the map.

5. The teacher displays an interactive exercise on the interactive whiteboard, which consists in assigning given examples of the Earth's surface forms to their specific types (mountains, uplands, lowlands and depressions). The students indicated by the teacher, or volunteers, define them on the class forum. Students can use geographical atlases.

6. The teacher presents the graphic entitled „Forms of the ocean floor’s shape”. The teacher shows individual forms on the physical map of world. The students search for the following terms in the abstract:

• continental shelf;

• continental slope;

• ocean basin;

• ocean trench.

They write them in their notebooks.

7. The students work in pairs and show ridges, ditches and ocean basins on the physical map of world. They give their names, define depths.

8. The teacher explains the term of a hipsographic curve of the Earth's surface, and together with the students they analyse the scheme.

Summary

1. The students independently do interactive exercises: they check the knowledge of selected terms (exercise with cards), and individual forms of the Earth’s surface and ocean floor forms (playing a one‑armed bandit).

2. The teacher assesses the students' work during the classes, taking into account their activity and individual possibilities.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

Basic forms of the Earth’s surface marked on maps

Taking into account absolute and relative altitudes, geographers divided the surface of our planet to variety of landforms (concerning bottoms of the sea and the ocean as well), differing in some aspects. First of all, they distinguished the mountains, highlands, lowlands and depressions on land, and continental shelfs, continental slope, oceanic basins and oceanic trenches below sea level.

Lowlands are flat or slightly sculpted areas with altitudes not exceeding 300 m above sea level, with occurrences of depressions, i.e. areas lying below sea level. Areas with absolute altitudes exceeding 300 m above sea level and relative altitudes below 300 m are considered highlands. However, in many countries, including Poland, the value separating lowlands from highlands is 200 m above sea level which results from the fact in specific environmental conditions, apart from altitude, geological structure is also taken into account. Elevation of highlands above sea level varies; majority of European highlands lie at 300‑600 m above sea level.
The mountains are landforms with greatly varied sculpture, high inclination of slopes, and relative altitude above 300 m, in relation to adjacent valleys. Due to relative hight and absolute hight the mountains are categorised to low, medium and high.

At the junction of continents and adjacent seas or oceans, a continental shelf is a typical landform, being a flooded part of a continent. This shelf stretches down to 200 m below sea level where it ends abruptly and transforms into continental slope with significant angle of inclination which constitutes a transitional form between continent and deeper ocean.

One of the most widespread zones of deep ocean (about 50% of the Earth’s surface) are oceanic basins. Their bottoms lie at the depth of 3000‑6000 m below sea level. Other deep structures in the ocean bottom are oceanic trenches which are elongated depressions with depth reaching more than 6000 m.
Landform percentage in total surface of the Earth is illustrated by a hypsographic curve.

Land morphology may also be shown as a cross section along a selected line. Such diagram is a very good imaging of altitude differences between different landforms located along the relevant line. This type of diagram is called hypsometric profile. The profile is constructed according to a contour line map. The vertical axis shows values of absolute altitudes, and the horizontal axis shows distances according to the scale of the map which constituted a base for construction of such profile.