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Region:
An area of land whose features set it apart from other
areas.
Geography:
All of the land and water features of an area including
mountains, meadows, deserts, lakes, rivers.
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Strawberry
Point School
Mill
Valley, California
Room 10 -- Class of Catherine
Graham
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This is an ongoing
year long 4th grade research and writing project that will
build upon the work of the previous class each year. In 4th
grade, we learn California's geography has 4 main regions.
It is the only state in the United States of America to be
made up of 4 distinct regions. These four main regions --
coast, desert, mountains, and valley -- each have features
that set it apart from the other areas. Each region offered
early settlers different challenges and advantages.
This project relates to district
standards for
both science
and social
studies. The
class of 24 students was divided into 4 groups with 6
students in each group. each person in the group was
expected to become an expert on his/her region topic. We
worked in these 4 region groups, both in the classroom with
4th grade teacher, Catherine
Graham, and in
the library with the help of our librarian, Dee
Kauer to
do the research, related activities and complete the
website. It was wonderful to collaborate with Dee as our
project continued to evolve each week. Many thanks to Vivian
Broadway, Caitlin's mom for helping us out in the library
each week during the 2003-2004 school year. Our research
focused on using the books by Diane Siebert called
"Heartland", "Mojave", and "Sierra", other nonfiction
research literature, and the Strawberry
Point School Web
to discover the natural living and nonliving components of
these 4 California Regions. The 6 areas of study
were:
- 1) Vegetation
(Plants)
- 2) Wildlife
(Animals)
- 3) Natural Features
(Landforms)
- 4) Natural Resources
(Industry)
- 5) Recreation (Fun
Activities)
- 6) Climate; Weather;
Natural Hazards; Population Density
We wondered... what makes up
each of these California regions and ecosystems? The big
ideas that we researched were:
- 1) What are the
characteristics and physical environments of the four
distinct regions of California?
- 2) How do these
characteristics affect past and present human
activity?
This project also focused on
how living organisms depend on one another and on their
environment for survival. We learned that ecosystems are
made up of living and nonliving components. In this
activity, we explored:
- 1) How do plants and
animals differ in their ability to survive that
particular California Region?
- 2) How do plants depend
on animals (pollination, seed dispersal, etc.) and how do
animals depend on plants (food, shelter etc.) in that
particular region?
- 3) What are some
different classifications of animals and plants and what
is their adaptation in that particular
region?
Enjoy your adventure through
the four regions of California as you explore our
research!
Web Site
Created: February 2, 2004;
Last Updated: March 24, 2004
Questions, comments, or suggestions about this website
should be directed to:
Catherine
Graham, Web Designer
©
2004 Strawberry Point School Web • All Rights
Reserved
Disclaimer
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