Land Use Lesson 3 : Classifying Land Use

1. Vocabulary development.

Terms for various categories of land use/land cover are central to this lesson: roads, water, urban/residential areas, farming (agriculture), forest, and other (wetlands, beaches, and quarries). While students are likely to be familiar with most of these terms, you may want to provide a basic introduction through a matching exercise. For example, you could create three lists on the chalkboard; one list would contain the terms, one would contain the definitions, and the third would show a magazine picture of the type of land use represented. Students could complete the matching and then check their answers with classmates. Definitions that could be used for this purpose follow:

Roads: A pathway for the use of land vehicles such as cars and trucks.

Water: Lakes, reservoirs, rivers, and creeks that cover land.

Urban area: City or town. Residential area: Place where people live.

Farming (agriculture): Growing food crops and animals.

Forest: Areas covered with trees.

Wetlands: An area where the land is saturated with water, such as a marsh or bog.

Beach: The land around a body of water, such as a lake, that is often sand or smaller pebbles; the shore.

Quarry: A pit from which stone or gravel is dug

Following the lesson, students could create a mural of the state of Michigan with drawings for each land use displayed in the areas where they are most common.

2. Introduce the Land Use Measuring Stick for Michigan.

Tell students that land is measured in acres or hectares (The metric system uses the hectare, which is approximately 2.49 acres). An acre is about the size of a football field without the end zones, or about 50 yards by 100 yards. Michigan has about 36 million acres of land (not counting the area of the Great Lakes), which can be represented on a measuring stick. If the measuring stick is divided into 36 equal lengths, like the inches on a yardstick, each of those lengths would represent 1 million acres. Distribute the Land Use Measuring Stick for Michigan student activity page to student pairs. Point out that the measuring stick is marked off in 36 equal lengths (zero is the top of the measuring stick), so each of these lengths equals 1 million acres. You may want to show students that even numbers are on the stick, but the marks show all 36 “inches” on the measuring stick. (Michigan has 83 counties, so an average county is a bit more than 400,000 acres.)

Be sure that students understand the categories of land use on the Measuring Stick for Land Use in Michigan student activity page—roads, water, urban/residential areas, farming (agriculture), forest, and other (wetlands, beaches, and quarries).

Ask students: How is the land around us used? What other parts of Michigan have you visited? What parts of Michigan have you seen in pictures? How was the land there used? Allow some time for discussion.

Students should pick a color for each land use and add that color to the key on the Measuring Stick for Land Use in Michigan.

3. Complete a Michigan Land Use Measuring Stick with actual data.

Show the transparency of Land Use in Michigan and have students fill in the Land Use Measuring Stick. You may need to remind students that each pre-marked segment equals 1 million acres. You may want to refer to these marks as “a million acres” for the sake of convenience.

a. Roads = 2 million acres Note: A mile of interstate uses 49.1 acres of land, most entrance/exit ramps take 35-45 acres. The tourist industry has increased the need for expanded road systems.

b. Water = 1 million acres Note: Michigan has 11,000 inland lakes and 36,500 miles of rivers.

c. Urban/residential areas = 4 million acres Note: Includes any built-up areas.

d. Farming/agriculture = 10 million acres Note: The amount of farmland in Michigan decreased from 16.4 million acres in 1954 to 10.1 million in 1994.

e. Forest = 18 million acres Note: Some farmland taken out of production has reverted to forestland.

f. Other (beaches, wetlands, quarries, etc.) = 1 million acres

4. Use the Michigan Land Use Map to describe the pattern of land use in Michigan.

Give each pair of students a copy of the Michigan Land Use Map (desktop size). Identify several large features to orient the students (Lake Michigan, Mackinac Straits, etc.); find your location. Lead a discussion around the following questions:

Where is most of the agricultural land? [In the southern half of the Lower Peninsula.]

What might be some of the reasons for this pattern? [A longer growing season in the south; a shorter growing season and poorer soil in the north make agriculture less economically viable.]

Where do most of the people live? [In urban and suburban areas in the south and southeast.]

5. Examine the forestland cover more closely using the Michigan Land Use map.

What land use covers most of Michigan’s land area? [Forests.]

Where is most of Michigan’s forestland located? [Upper Peninsula and northern portion of the Lower Peninsula.]

What do you like to do in forests? [Hike, camp, hunt, and watch wildlife.] Why are forests important to Michigan’s economy? [Forest products such as lumber for houses and other buildings, pulpwood for making paper.]

Michigan forests are very important to our environment. Who owns the forests? Show the Who Owns Michigan’s Forests? transparency.

Ask students: What are the three categories of forest land ownership? What might the different owners do with the land? Suggested discussion points are:

• Forest Industry: Companies that own and harvest forests for lumber and paper pulp.

• Government: The government owns state and national forests. County, township, and city governments also own forestland in parks and nature preserves. Reinforce the concept that the government is the people. Everyone in the State of Michigan owns part of the state forests. You cannot sell that part, but you can enjoy the forest by visiting, helping with the stewardship of the forestlands, and participating in the policy decisions that are made about the forest.

• Private, Non-industrial Ownership: Individuals own most of Michigan’s forestland. The private, non-industrial forests include the wood lots on farms, houses with 2 or 3 acres of forest, and farmland no longer farmed but where forest has been reestablished.

Where are there government-owned forests in Michigan? [The state and federal forestlands are in the northern part of the Lower Peninsula and in the Upper Peninsula.]

Who has the responsibility to care for (the stewardship) of the state and federal forestlands? [The government agencies and the people. The government represents the people. Therefore, the people are in charge of the forestlands. People living in Michigan are responsible for the State Forests, and everyone living in the United States is responsible for the National Forests. Agencies such as the Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Forest Service are given the responsibility to be good stewards in the best interests of the public.]

Who is responsible for the stewardship of land in private ownership (individuals and businesses)? [The owners are responsible. The individual who own forestland has to decide if the forest should be cut, if the land should be changed to another land use, if it should be thinned and managed, or if it should be left in its natural state. The individuals who own forestland determine how it is used.]

6. Compare stewardship to ownership.

How is stewardship different from ownership? [Being an owner carries certain rights, but does not indicate much about responsibility. The term stewardship implies both rights and responsibilities.]

Who usually owns the land used for each of the different kinds of land uses? Following are several discussion points. Refer to the Land Stewardship and Land Use/Land Cover maps.

• Roads: Owned by the government (everyone uses them; emphasize that the government is the people). In economics, they are called a public good. (A public good is not the same as the core democratic value, common good.)

• Water: The government owns most rivers, streams, and lakes in Michigan, although some smaller water bodies are privately owned. The public can use most of Michigan’s waters, although public access is not always available. Most surface water is a public good, but ground water may be pumped and sold as a private good.

• Urban/Residential: This is land that is used for houses, faith-based buildings, stores, service stations, industry, malls, etc. It is nearly always in private ownership. There are some urban land uses, such as parks, schools, and governmental buildings, that are owned by the government.

• Farming: Farmland is nearly all owned bymindividuals or businesses.

• Forest: Government, industry, or individuals own the forests.

• Other: Other land uses include abandoned land, rock quarries, beaches, and wetlands. Often the government is in charge of the land and takes responsibility for stewardship.

7. Review the ownership of land and the impact people have on land use.

What land uses are impacted by people? [All land uses.]

Who makes the decision about how the land in your house and yard is used? [The family and/or the landlord.]

In many cases, individuals make decisions about how the land is to be used. The result is that individuals have impacts on the land – the land use is affected by an individual’s decisions.

What are examples of impacts people have on land use? [People build homes and other buildings, grow crops, and determine where highways and biking trails go, build shopping malls.]