1. Have students think about a grocery store.
Ask students to imagine a typical large-chain grocery store. Ask: What different sections are in the store? What types of things are shelved together? Tell students to think of each of the parts of the store that have fruit products as a region. Explain that geographers define the word region as an area as "having one or more common characteristics that are found throughout." Ask: How many regions would you guess your store has?

2. Distribute the worksheet.
Divide students into pairs. Have pairs use mental maps to identify the approximate regions in a local grocery store using the worksheet Regions in My Grocery Store. Ask pairs to think about the location of each item and write its name in its approximate location.

3. Have students identify patterns.
Ask: Can you find any patterns? Why do some foods appear together? Give students examples of grouped foods, such as refried beans and tortillas, or tomato sauce with canned tomatoes. Ask: Would you change your guess about how many regions your store has? Why?

4. Ask students to name the regions.
Ask pairs to brainstorm names a geographer might give each region and write them on the worksheet. Provide two examples to get them started: the frozen foods region could be Antarctica; the bread aisle could be the Wheat Belt. Encourage students to have fun with this step and to create more than one region name per aisle, when needed. Remind them of the other "regions" of a grocery store, such as where the carts are, and the check-out section.

5. Have a whole-class discussion.
Ask:

  • Are some regions harder to define than others? Why or why not?
  • Is each region the same size? Are some more noticeable than others? Explain.
  • What items might belong in more than one region?
  • Are the regions placed in some sort of order? What is it?
  • Would you have organized the store differently? Why?

Extending the Learning

Bring six or more common grocery-store items to class. Have students write down where each item was produced and mark those places on a blank world map. When the map is done, ask them to identify any patterns.

Subjects & Disciplines

Learning Objectives

Students will:

  • identify the regions of a grocery store
  • identify patterns in the organization

Teaching Approach

  • Learning-for-use

Teaching Methods

  • Brainstorming
  • 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 7:  Production, Distribution, and Consumption

National Geography Standards

  • Standard 5:  That people create regions to interpret Earth's complexity

What You’ll Need

Materials You Provide

  • Colored pencils
  • Markers

Physical Space

  • Classroom

Grouping

  • Small-group instruction

Background Information

Geography is everywhere—even in the grocery store. Not only does your food come from all over the globe, it’s also arranged in patterns in the store like those that geographers study.

Prior Knowledge

  • None

Recommended Prior Activities

  • None

Vocabulary

region
Noun

any area on Earth with one or more common characteristics. Regions are the basic units of geography.

Websites

Tips & Modifications

  • Credits

    Media Credits

    The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.

    Editor

    Christina Riska Simmons

    Educator Reviewer

    Mark H. Bockenhauer, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Geography, St. Norbert College

    Sources

    adapted from National Geographic Xpeditions activity “Geographic Groceries”

  • User Permissions

    For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.

    Media

    If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media.

    Text

    Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service.

    Interactives

    Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives.