Lesson Plans and Study Resources

Some of the most unique, and therefore vulnerable, habitats in the United States are outside the protection of national parks. If lost, these habitats cannot be recovered.

Students play a guessing game, using questions and maps, to identify the name of a city, state, country, or major physical feature in a continent of your choosing, or the United States.

Activity. Students practice sorting, organizing, and displaying elevation data in order to learn about the physical landscape of the United States.

Students compare several maps to explore relationships between high and low population density, transportation corridors, climate, and land cover in the United States.

Students are introduced to the major language and religious groups of Europe. They explore how those groups align with and/or cross country borders.

There are seven continents on Earth. Test your knowledge about Europe with this Kahoot!

Students research four additional examples of physical geography and borders. They explore how mountains, oceans, and islands create physical barriers that affect the country borders in Europe.

Students research four additional examples of human geography and borders. They explore how language, culture, and religious differences affect country borders in Europe.

Due to very low levels of oxygen at shallow depths, Black Sea shipwrecks are well preserved when compared to other Mediterranean wrecks from the same time period. Oceanographers and maritime archaeologists look to the waters of the Black Sea for shipwrecks that can be used to uncover the history and culture of ancient civilizations throughout the region. 

Use this unit to explore European physical and cultural landscapes with your middle school students. This series of teacher-tested lessons will have your students use maps to think about how borders intersect physical and human geographical features, and how those intersections can lead to cooperation and/or conflict.

National Geographic Archaeology Fellow Fredrik Hiebert explains the significance of Afghanistan to the ancient Silk Road—and how the country might develop a new Silk Road in the future. 

There are seven continents on Earth. Test your knowledge about Asia with this Kahoot!

National Geographic Geographer Alex Tait embarked on a journey to Mount Everest to collect data on the melting ice in the mountain range. Alex Tait and his team hope to provide a safer path to those who live around the mountain and a better understanding of how climate change is affecting their everyday life. 

Lillygol Sedaghat (Lilly for short) is a multimedia storyteller at the intersection of science, systems, and people. She joined the "Sea to Source: Ganges" expedition on the Ganges River to talk to local people about why and how they use plastic. The data she collects about the social and economic factors that result in plastic being put in the river's holy waters will not only help protect the famously polluted Ganges, but will give us insights into plastic pollution around the world.

How marine protected areas help sustain communities and protect ocean life

Students identify major languages spoken in the Americas, map them, and discuss the relationship between the distribution of languages and the colonial history of the countries.

There are seven continents on Earth. Test your knowledge about North America with this Kahoot!

Students explore the relationships between rivers and early settlements in the United States. They select a major river of the Americas, research it, and write a story from the river’s point of view.

Students compare several maps to explore relationships between high and low population density, transportation corridors, climate, and land cover in the United States.

Explore the migration routes of several different species in North America.

The proposed Pucallpa–Cruzeiro do Sul will connect the Amazon’s interior to urban centers and export markets in Peru and Brazil. However, critics are worried that the road will also create new opportunities for illegal logging and infringe on the territory of indigenous communities and wildlife.

There are seven continents on Earth. Test your knowledge about South America with this Kahoot!

Students explore biodiversity in the Amazon rainforest using the MapMaker Interactive and other online resources. Then students construct an argument for protecting biodiversity in the Amazon rainforest.

Students learn about three scenarios that involve heavy construction in the Amazon rainforest. They read case scenarios that describe what proponents and critics say about each scenario. Students use the MapMaker Interactive to pinpoint the locations of the construction projects and conduct research to develop a position statement on whether or not construction should occur.

What does it mean to be an Explorer in the 21st century? The idea of exploring our world means something different than it did more than 100 years ago when Ernest Shackleton ventured into the icy waters of the south Atlantic Ocean. National Geographic Explorer Alizé Carrère and Lindblad Expeditions Naturalist Tom Ritchie travel to the Falkland Islands to discover what it means to be a Modern Explorer. Get ready for the adventure of a lifetime!

Students explore a real-world social issue of building a road in the Amazon. Students investigate the benefits this road could offer to the communities along the Brazil-Peru corridor and weigh this against the potential threats to the ecosystem and indigenous peoples.

Students use a decision-making process to explore the complex nature of real-world environmental conflicts and how they get resolved. Students will examine the geographical, cultural, and political context of the social issue within this case study, identify the stakeholders and their roles and impact, and map out the intended and unintended consequences of the decision that was made.

There are seven continents on Earth. Test your knowledge about Africa with this Kahoot!

The Maasai people of East Africa built a pastoral way of life around their cattle, but the modern market economy has threatened to override the economy of bovine exchange.

Use these ideas to explore the watershed of the Okavango Delta with students.

This is an educator idea for teaching about the current controversy over the Gilgel Gibe III, a hydroelectric power plant the Ethiopian government is constructing on the Lower Oma Valley of the Turkana River. The dam is predicted to double the electrical output of Ethiopia but devastate the lives and livelihoods of thousands of indigenous people in Kenya who depend on the Turkana River for survival.

There are seven continents on Earth. Test your knowledge about Australia with this Kahoot!

Tasmania is home to the ravenous, wild, and endangered Tasmanian devil. Without this savage, scavenger beast as an apex carnivore, the entire island ecosystem of Tasmania would suffer a loss in biodiversity. Already, the Tasmanian devil is extinct on the mainland of Australia. Today, the Tasmanian population of devils is the only one left in the world.

European rabbits were brought over to Australia in the 1800s, and they have caused great environmental damage since then. Experts have even stated European rabbits' introduction to Australia was one of the fastest spreading instances of an invasive mammal.

Mount Kosciuszko is Australia’s highest mountain. It is sometimes included as one of the Seven Summits, which are the highest mountain peaks on each continent.

Students use photos and information about Australia’s Shark Bay to draw and label a simple food web. Then they identify which animal in the ecosystem is a keystone species.

Students identify cause-and-effect relationships between sugar cane production and the health of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

Students use an interactive map to analyze the patterns of migration across the globe and discuss the push and pull factors that cause people to migrate.

Students learn about UNESCO World Heritage sites and use pictures and clues to identify the locations of the sites on a large map. They use geographic coordinates to refine the locations of the sites and consider how geographic coordinates are part of a helpful system of location.

There are seven continents on Earth. Test your knowledge about Antarctica with this Kahoot!

Students view satellite images of places past and present and analyze the changes over time.

A river is a large, natural stream of flowing water. Rivers are found on every continent and on nearly every kind of land.

Though the most widespread of all the big cats (with territories in Africa and Asia), the leopard has lost much of its territory through the years. Much of this is due to the increasing spread of humankind though the spread of cities, agriculture, and deforestation.

Students discuss the geography of the ocean and explore how the ocean has been categorized in the past and today.

Students investigate the interconnectedness of the ocean and Earth's physical and human systems through videos, discussions, writing, and mapping. They make personal connections to their own lives and are introduced to the concept of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).

Students explore Marine Protected Areas on an interactive map and compare and contrast three case studies. They learn how the MPA classification system works in the United States, apply that system to example scenarios, and create case studies of their own.

Students learn about three examples of human impacts on marine life: migration patterns and shipping, algal blooms and water chemistry, and marine debris. Some of these impacts are due to human activity in the ocean, and some impacts on the ocean are due to human activity on land.

Dive into Earth's most extreme marine ecosystems using this map and doing this activity.

Zealandia is a long, narrow microcontinent that is mostly submerged in the South Pacific Ocean

Use this Kahoot! to test your students' knowledge of biodiversity.

Students explore biodiversity in the Amazon rainforest using the MapMaker Interactive and other online resources. Then students construct an argument for protecting biodiversity in the Amazon rainforest.

Students select and map an area. Then they practice finding direction, determining scale, and identifying natural and human features.

Students watch a video that explores biodiversity in Patagonia. Based on this example, students then identify major groups of organisms in Indonesian forests. Using a model food web from a backyard ecosystem, the class builds a food web that shows the relationships between the Sumatran rhino and other species in its ecosystem.

An invasive species is an organism that is not indigenous, or native, to a particular area. Invasive species can cause great economic and environmental harm to the new area.

Students learn about ecosystem services and how they can be classified. Using a card sort, students identify major ecosystem services provided by the Indonesian rainforest where the Sumatran rhino lives. Students then consider what would happen to the Sumatran rhino, local biodiversity, and ecosystem services if the main food source for rhinos experienced a major decline.