U.S. Geography Unit 1: Map Skills

This unit is the first in Miacademy’s online US Geography course for upper elementary grades. It focuses on map skills, which are an essential component of understanding geography. The unit includes three lessons:

Map Skills: Simple Grid
The World
Map Skills: Longitude and Latitude

These lessons will provide students with the basic concepts and skills needed to read, interpret, and navigate maps. Additionally, it will help to develop spatial thinking, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.

Unit Overview: Map Skills

This unit on map skills is designed to set kids up for success in the rest of the geography course. It builds on student knowledge from earlier work in social studies courses and aims to provide students with a deeper understanding of how to read, interpret, and navigate maps.

Throughout the unit, students will learn how to use different types of maps, including physical and political maps. They will also understand how to read and use a grid system, longitude, and latitude. By the end of the unit, students should be able to locate and identify places on a map using these skills, and have a better understanding of the world’s physical and political features.

Lesson 1: Map Skills: Simple Grid

In the first lesson of the unit, students will learn the basics of how to read and use a grid system on a map. They will practice locating and identifying places on a map using grid coordinates.

Lesson 2: The World

The second lesson of the unit provides an overview of the major physical and political features of the world. Students will practice identifying and locating countries, continents, oceans, and other major geographic features around the world.

Lesson 3: Map Skills: Longitude and Latitude

In the third and final lesson of the unit, students will learn about the concepts of longitude and latitude, and how to use them to locate places on a map. This lesson will help students to understand the positioning of places on the Earth and how they relate to each other.

Unit 2: The Northeast

The next unit in Miacademy’s U.S. Geography course is “The Northeast” and contains four lessons that focus on this region of the country. This unit builds on the map skills developed in unit 1 as students begin to explore the geography of the United States in more depth. Read more about this unit here!