Latin America Home Project

Including the

Five Themes of Geography

 

     For this project, you will be creating a flip book about a Latin American country. Your teacher will show you an example of a flip book in class and help you get started. You will be delving into the culture and geography of your chosen country and finding out exciting things about how the people there interact with their environment.  Have fun!

 

Here are the steps you need to follow to create your country flip book:

 

1.       Choose the country you will be studying and have it approved by your teacher. ( See appendix A) ___/4

 

2.      Your cover must include your full name, your country name (spelled correctly) and a hand drawn picture of your country’s flag.  Be sure all is neat, attractive, and colorful.  ___/6

 

3.     Your first section in the flip book will be labeled Location. Draw, color, and label a map of your country. (See Appendix B for directions.) To accompany your map, write a short paragraph telling the exact location of your country, and its relative location. (See Appendix C for an example.) ___/20

 

4.     Label the second section in your flip book as Place. What is the special feeling/sounds/foods/etc you will find in this country? Describe the uniqueness of your country in a minimum of 6 sentences.  ___/10

 

5.     The next section will be labeled Human Environment Interaction. Provide a written description (min 6 complete sentences) about 3 ways in which people change/work with the land/area where they live.  Include a minimum of 3 pictures in this section. ___/10

 

6.     Moving on to Movement, locate 3-5 pictures of manufacturing and transportation in your country and include these pictures in this section. Write a 2 sentence caption for each picture that explains how the picture relates to the movement of people, goods and ideas into and out of an area. ___/10

 

7.     The last theme of geography to be included in your book is Region. Describe the common features that your country possesses.  You must include a minimum of 2 written examples of the types of regions your country with 2 pictures that demonstrate what you described. ___/10

 

8.     Label another section as Maps.  Create a climate graph showing average summer and winter temperatures, and a map showing annual precipitation. (Appendix D) ___/10

 

9.     Your last required section is to be labeled Bibliography.  At least 4 different sources must be cited.  This means that you may not just use the internet to look up your country’s information.  Choose other sources such as an encyclopedia, Social Studies textbook, Culture Gram, individual country books, rent a movie from the library or watch a television show about your country, interview someone who has been to this country…there are many different ways to perform this research.  All sources must be listed in the proper format.  Please refer to the handout that your teacher provided you or you may use the citation link on the TMS LRC web page. ___/10

 

10.  Want to boost your score up to an additional 12 points? You may include one other section entitled Extra Credit. Include a recipe with a written description about the food chosen, a captioned picture of a dance or other tradition, and one other sample and description of the culture, such as religion, language, music, clothing, etc.     (Appendix E) ___/10

 

 

YOUR SCORE ___/90

 

Rubric

 

 

 

 

Appendix A

List of Countries:

Argentina

Belize

Bolivia

Brazil

Chile

Colombia

Costa Rica

Cuba

Dominican Republic

Ecuador

El Salvador

Guatemala

Haiti

Jamaica

Mexico

Nicaragua

Paraguay

Peru

 

 

Appendix B

Items required for map:

Title

Compass Rose

Key

Label all oceans, seas bordering

Outline and label all countries bordering

Capital City

Two other major cities

Major rivers, lakes, mountain ranges or other major physical features (plains, plateaus, deserts, etc)

 

 

Appendix C

Exact location: This is the latitude and longitude of a location. It tells EXACTLY where it is.

Relative Location: This tells where your location is in relation to somewhere else. For example, The U.S. is south of Canada, north of Mexico, east of the Pacific Ocean, and west of the Atlantic Ocean. For your paragraph, tell exactly where the country is using latitude and longitude, and then describe its relative location by telling which other countries or bodies of water border it.

 

EXAMPLE:

“The United States is located at 40 degrees north latitude, and 100 degrees west longitude. It is bordered to the north by Canada, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by Mexico, and to the west by the Pacific ocean.”

 

 

Appendix D

You can find examples of climate graphs and precipitation maps in your geography book. The map can be traced from another picture. Different parts of your country may have different levels of precipitation and temperature. If so, just pick a major city and use that for your map and graph. For the graph, put the time of year on the x-axis and the temperature on the y-axis. (We will discuss this in class and show examples) Be sure your map and graph are labeled and include a key.

 

 

Appendix E

For your recipe and food paragraph, try www.world-recipes.info/

Other sources would be fine too. Copy the recipe and show a picture if you can. Write a paragraph in your own words about what kinds of foods are popular in your country. For the picture you can use the internet, magazines, travel brochures, etc. Just be sure to write a caption that explains what it is and why it is important in the culture of your country. You can do the same thing for the other sample of culture, or you can draw an item and explain it, or paste in a souvenir or other item that symbolized the nation’s culture and lets us know what it’s like to be there.