Enhancements

1. Practice Interpreting Air Photos. Practice using air photos of a variety of landscapes will improve students’ ability to use these geographic tools. A Bird’s-eye View from Rand McNally is one source of such photos. The Internet site TerraServer (http://terraserver.microsoft.com/) allows users to generate an air photo for virtually any address in the United States, including their own homes or the school. By beginning with the closest view, students will more readily be able to identify objects they know; as they gradually zoom out, they can begin to see patterns based on their knowledge of the area.

Extensions

1. My Neighborhood: How Has It Changed? This lesson from the curriculum This Land Is Your Land: Lesson Plans for Land Use (United Growth for Kent County and the Michigan State University Extension) engages students in examining an air photo and comparing two photos of the same area, photographed at least 10 years later. They locate and identify changes that have taken place in the area and then write several compare and contrast statements. If local photographs are unavailable, they can use the Fruitland images provided with the lesson. This lesson can be found at http://www.msue.msu.edu/portal/default.cfm?pageset_id=27672&page_id=158096&msue_portal_id=25643

2. Creating a Bird’s-eye View of My House and Yard. Encourage students to draw a picture showing their house and yard or the school and schoolyard as they would look to a flying bird, butterfly, or bat. Help students think about how objects would look from the bird’s-eye view by having them consider how classroom objects would look from above. In fact, they might begin their drawing with a fly’s-eye view of the classroom and then move on to a bird’s-eye view of the school or home.

3. Identifying “Land Uses” at Home. This lesson introduces the concept of land use, which will be developed throughout the unit. To give students some firsthand experience with the concept, ask them to brainstorm a list of different ways that space is used in a home (categories might include food preparation and eating, sleeping, doing homework and reading, watching television, bathing, etc.). As homework, have students create a map showing how space is used in their home (if they have a multi-story home, they might only do one floor). What use requires the most “land”? What use requires the least “land”? Would students change the use of “land” in their home if they could?

4. Land Use/Land Cover Interpretation Quiz. This quiz allows students to challenge their airphoto interpretation skills by identifying how the land is being used. This quiz could be done as an assessment option to this lesson or completed in class either in small groups or as a class. This quiz can be found at: http://terraserver.microsoft.com/

5. Air Photos from Airplanes. This extension allows students to color a picture of an airplane flying over an area of forest and farmland with intersecting roads. The picture is called Keeping Track because it demonstrates that air photos are a good way to determine and analyze what is happening with land use on the Earth’s surface. To give students some firsthand experience with air photos from airplanes, ask them to brainstorm a list of different things that the pilot or passengers on the plane would see on the ground from the plane. Continue by asking: What would be included on a picture of the ground if it were taken from the airplane? After the discussion ends, provide the students with coloring pencils and/or crayons and have them color the picture.

6. Google Earth Image of Shelby Township. Recent satellite images of Shelby Township are available from Google Maps (http://maps.google.com). When viewing Shelby Township on Google Maps use the print air photos to orient the image. One way to orient the Google Map image is to use the highways and interchange on the west side of the image. This will permit the identification of Shelby Township nearly the same as is presented in the print material. To give students some first-hand experience using Google Maps to study land use have them compare and contrast the Google image with the most recent print image in the materials. Continue by asking “Where have the most recent changes in land use occurred in Shelby Township?”; “Does it appear there are places where further land use changes can be made?”; “Where on the Google image might a sports stadium with a large amount of car parking spaces be located?” and “How might that affect other land used on the image?”