1. Draw a map of your school or community.
Draw a simple map of your school or community on the board. Include suggestions from students about what should be included and where things should be placed. Make sure the items on the map are places students are familiar with, such as the gymnasium, cafeteria, and playground for a school or the park, mall, school, and grocery store for a community. Have students copy the map on their own paper.

2. Have students create pasta population maps for the school or community.
Give students pieces of pasta and glue. Ask them to decide which parts of the school or places in the community have the most people or are the most crowded. Then, have them glue multiple pieces of pasta on the part of the map that represents the most crowded parts of the school or community. Have them glue just a few pieces of pasta onto places where there are only a few people, and no pasta on places where no people tend to go. You can demonstrate where they should glue their pasta by drawing pieces of pasta on the map on the board.

3. Have students reflect.
Tell students that they have just created a population map of their school or community, showing the places that have the largest and smallest numbers of people. Review the maps as a class and ask: Which parts of the school are the most crowded? Which are the least crowded? Why?

Subjects & Disciplines

Learning Objectives

Students will:

  • create a population map

Teaching Approach

  • Learning-for-use

Teaching Methods

  • Discussions
  • Hands-on learning

Skills Summary

This activity targets the following skills:

Connections to National Standards, Principles, and Practices

National Council for Social Studies Curriculum Standards

  • Theme 3:  People, Places, and Environments

National Geography Standards

  • Standard 3:  How to analyze the spatial organization of people, places, and environments on Earth's surface
  • Standard 9:  The characteristics, distribution, and migration of human populations on Earth's surface

What You’ll Need

Materials You Provide

  • Glue
  • Paper
  • Pasta in assorted shapes
  • Pencils

Physical Space

  • Classroom

Grouping

  • Large-group instruction

Background Information

Population is the whole number of people living in an area, such as a town or city. Mapping a population helps you to see where the area is most and least crowded.

Prior Knowledge

  • None

Recommended Prior Activities

Vocabulary

map
Noun

symbolic representation of selected characteristics of a place, usually drawn on a flat surface.
population
Noun

total number of people or organisms in a particular area.

Websites

  • Credits

    Media Credits

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    Writer

    Nancee Hunter

    Editor

    Christina Riska Simmons

    Expert Reviewer

    Elizabeth Chacko, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Geography, The George Washington University

    Sources

    adapted from National Geographic Xpeditions Lesson “How do you Like a Crowd?” and Xpeditions Activity “Population Pasta”

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