Nov. 12, 2008: This Land Is Your Land

The Mini Page is a syndicated, four-page tabloid written for young children found each Wednesday in the Rocky Mountain News. This issue of The Mini Page is available through the eEdition Archive to registered eEdition subscribers. Click here to learn about subscribing to the eEdition at no cost to you (for Colorado teachers).

Activities:

1. Choose your favorite national park from today's Mini Page. Write the name of the park in the middle of a piece of paper. Cut out newspaper words that describe the park and paste them around its name.

2. Select one of the national parks that you'd like to visit. Then find 10 items in newspaper ads that you would pack to take with you on your trip. Look for clothing and camping and recreational equipment. Add up the prices of your items. How much would your trip cost?

3. Select five people in the newspaper. (You may use people from news stories or characters from comic strips.) Paste or write their names on a piece of paper. Next to each name, write the name of the national park you think that person might like to visit. Write a sentence telling why you chose that park.

4. Which of the national parks (a) are located on or near water, (b) are examples of geological activity, (c) offer opportunities to study many different forms of animal life, and (d) are in hot, dry locations?

5. Use resource books and the Internet to learn more about a national park.
Select one of the parks to investigate. Use these questions to guide your research: How large is the park? What is the climate like? What wildlife lives there? How accessible is the park to visitors? What is unique about it? Use your findings to write a short story about taking a trip to the park.

This week's standards:

• Students understand the human and physical characteristics of places. (Geography: Places and Regions)
• Students understand the physical processes that shape the pattern of the Earth's surface. (Geography: Physical Systems)
  
  

(standards by Dr. Sherrye D. Garrett, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi)