Topic: Poland location in worldwide and European perspective

Written by: Magdalena Jankun

Target group

7th‑grade student of elementary school

Core curriculum

IX. Poland’s natural environment in European perspective: Poland’s geographical location.

1) determine physical and geographical location as well as political location of Poland, indicate Poland’s borders on the map, including within inner water bodies.

2) read latitude and longitude of selected points at the map of Poland.

Purpose of the lesson

Students determine geographical location of Poland.

Criteria for success

• to determine geographical location of Poland;

• to discuss consequences of the fact that Poland is located in Central Europe;

• to determine geographical coordinates of extreme points at the Poland’s borders;

• to provide Poland’s neighbours;

• to be familiar with the range of economic zone at the Baltic Sea;

• to calculate the latitudinal extent in degrees and the meridional extent in degrees and kilometers.

Key competences

• communication in native language;

• communication in non‑native language;

• mathematical competences;

• IT competences;

• ability to learn;

• social and civic competences.

Methods/forms of work

• Work with maps and multimedia, talk on topic, a mental map method.

• Individual work and work in pairs.

Teaching aids

• an abstract;

• an interactive or traditional writing board;

• a multimedia projector;

• tablets/computers;

• Google Earth application;

• Mind Mapping application;

• a physical map of Europe;

• a physical map of Poland;

• geographical atlases.

Stages of the lesson

Introduction

1. The teacher provides a topic and a purpose of the lesson as well as conditions to be met to succeed.

2. Students perform an interactive exercise, being a jigsaw puzzle representing a physical map of Poland.

3. The teacher runs Google Earth and shows Poland area in variety of scales.

Realization

1. The teacher suggest students to imagine a situation where they need to provide information on Poland’s location, as accurate as possible, to a peer living in Borneo who has never heard of our country. After a discussion, including student’s comments, the teacher asks them to look at a pull‑down table describing different methods for determining location of a particular country on a map.

2. The teacher runs Mind Mapping: during this lesson, students are going to write all the data pertaining to Poland’s location with this application.

3. The teachers orders students to use a geographical atlas and discuss Poland’s geographical location. He/she reminds students that description of localisation of any object on a map requires to define its place in relation to other geographical objects, e.g. mountains, hills, highlands, lowlands, dells, valleys, rivers, lakes, seas, islands, peninsulas etc. He/she adds that Poland’s territory is very compact, and its shape resembles a circle, with geometrical centre to the north of Łódź, in a town of Piątek.

4. A volunteer or a student indicated by the teacher comes over to a wall map of Poland, indicates the borders and determines its geographical location. Another student has to show Poland’s location at the map of Europe. The teacher emphasises that Poland lies in its central part.

5. The teacher asks students to define extreme points of Poland (ie. points located as far as possible to the north, south, east and west) and to note their geographical coordinates in notebooks. He/she emphasises that this is a way to determine mathematical and geographical location of a particular object on a map. Next, he/she shows a picture named “Extreme points of the Poland’s area”. Students check their notes and correct them, if needed.

6. The teacher runs Google Earth at the interactive boars and indicates the extreme points of Poland.

7. Students, working in pairs, calculate Poland’s length along the parallels and the meridians, according to guidelines presented in the abstract.

8. The teacher shows, at the interactive board, a picture presenting Poland’s territory in 1939, Poland’s current borders, and lengths of particular borders. He/she presents an overview of geopolitical location of Poland in Europe, indicating Poland’s neighbours and its marine border. He/she explains the cause of significantly long border with the Czech Republic.

9. Students independently perform an interactive exercises, consisting in matching names of neighbouring countries with correct borders.

10. The teacher presents a map showing marine areas belonging to Poland. He/she describes the range of economic zone at the Baltic Sea; He/she points out to the fact that, due to a large number of countries at the Baltic shores, Polish economic zone stretches for merely 30‑40 nautical miles. He/she explains that, according to the UN Convention on the law of the sea, marine areas within the Poland’s territory include:

• inner waters (bays and lagoons);

• territorial waters - a band with a width of 12 nautical miles;

• economic zone - a band with a width of 200 nautical miles;

11. Students perform an interactive exercise, consisting in matching characteristics related to Poland’s location to their natural and economic effects. The teacher analyses these effects together with students.

Summary

1. The teacher asks students to look at a mental map, prepared during the lesson, and to choose information which would be sent to their peer living in Borneo.

2. The teacher evaluates efforts of students during the lesson, considering their commitment and individual abilities.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

Poland location in worldwide and European perspective

The location of a selected object on the map may be described as:

Mathematical location is determined by reading longitude and latitude of the relevant object. In case of objects with large area, we need to read geographical coordinates of its extreme points, i.e. northernmost, southernmost, easternmost and westernmost point.
By learning geographical coordinates of extreme points of the relevant area, we can calculate its meridian arc and parallel arc.

One of the consequences of meridian span is varied Sun culmination. In the south, the Sun culminates about 5° higher than in the north.
Another consequence of meridian span are different lengths of a day and a night – which take their extreme values during summer and winter solstices. In summer, at the coast, a day is about 1 hour longer than in the south. In winter, it is 1 hour shorter.

The number of neighbouring countries fluctuated as years passed. Some time ago, such countries as Turkey, Romania or Latvia were briefly our neighbours. Currently, we share borders with the Russian Federation (210 km), Lithuania (104 km), Belarus (418 km), Ukraine (535 km), Slovakia (541 km), the Czech Republic (796 km) and Germany (467 km).

The illustration below shows the territory of Poland in 1939, modern borders and the length of each border.

Nowadays, Poland is a country with high territorial cohesion which is evidenced by low border variation ratio. It is expressed by the length of borders of specific area divided by its mathematical area. Currently, the border variation ratio is 1.77. Before the Second World War, it was equal to 2.95.

An important role in a political location of any country is played by its military security. Not long ago, this security was provided by natural borders, e.g. the mountains, rivers, inaccessible forests, lakes, swamps or seas. In modern times, in an era of globalisation and technological process, importance of natural borders has diminished.