Goals:

1. The students will locate countries and major cities on a map of the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean, gaining a familiarity with the lands talked about in Kidnapped and Treasure Island.
2. The students will gain familiarity with vocabulary used in Kidnapped and Treasure Island.
3. The students will measure and calculate distances on a map using a map scale.
4. The students will convert the measured distances to nautical miles.
5. The students will create a topographic map.
6. The students will place distances in nautical miles into a table as another form of organizing data.

Resources:

1. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. Adapted by Bob Blaisdell. (Dover Publications, 1996)
2. The blank world map with the students' labeled countries from the Treasure or Not? lesson
3. Maps and Mazes by Gillian Chapman and Pam Robson (The Milbrook Press, 1993)
4. The Internet can also be used to find conversion figures from nautical miles to miles.  The number of miles in one nautical mile is 1.15077944802354 miles.
5. World maps, or continent maps should be available for the students to reference. These maps or books with maps should have country names, capitals and topography available for student use.
6. Dictionaries or social studies books should also be available.
7. Pens or Pencils
8. Crayons, Markers or Colored Pencils

Time:

This lesson should run somewhere between two and three hours.
 

Procedure:

1. The students will have read Treasure Island.
2. Hand out the maps and ask students to use any resources (i.e. world maps, atlases, social studies books) to find country names and capitals. Write those names on their maps.
3. Use topographic maps and have students create their own topographic maps of the ocean and the shoreline maps using the maps from the "Treasure or Not?" lesson with the countries and capitals. Include the topography of the oceans also. (Direct instruction may be needed in creating topographic maps. The best way to show students how to make a topographic map may be through a specific example showing students the topographic scale with its various colors and the color of the map due to different elevations.)
4. Give a list of vocabulary words the students should know with respect to geography. This list may include words such as gulf, sea, peninsula, island, and strait.
5. Students find the definitions of these words along with a specific example from their created maps. (This could also be done in a table.)
6. Have students calculate the distance to various capitals on their created map and then covert it to nautical miles. Make sure students show their work!
7. Using their calculations, students will put the distances into a table as another form of recording data. The table will look something like the following example with the left hand column being the origin of travel and the top row is the destinations. All distances in the table should be in nautical miles. (REMEMBER, this is just an example! Distances are not accurate!)

 

	New York, New York	Lisbon, Portugal	Edinburgh, Scotland
New York, New York	0	2000	2200
Lisbon, Portugal	2000	0	300
Edinburgh, Scotland	2200	300	0

 

1. Assign Kidnapped to be read carefully looking for geographic places and vocabulary.

Assessment:

1. Each person will hand in a map with the countries, major cities, topography and a topographic scale. (Criteria for success - Students will have X number of countries and major cities located. The students will also have the topography of the entire region, including bodies of water, colored correctly with a topographic scale so other people reading the map will be able to recognize each region's topography.)
2. Students will turn in an example of each of the vocabulary words. (Criteria for success = An example on their map that is specifically designated as an example of the vocabulary words.) The definitions and other examples can be used for future student reference.
3. Students will organize their distance data in an organized manner using the table. (Criteria for success = Students will place correct distances to different locations in the table. Included with the table should be the student's steps in converting miles to nautical miles. Partial credit will be given for each correct step: finding correct distances in miles, using the correct conversion factor to convert to nautical miles, and finally calculating the number of nautical miles by multiplication.)

Curricular Strands and Major Concepts:

1. Social Studies - Learning the names and locations of countries and capitals along with the topography of areas. Students also learn geographic vocabulary.
2. Math - Calculating distances from various cities along with recording the data in a table.
3. Language Arts - Reading Treasure Island and beginning Kidnapped.

Possible Extensions:

1. Have students graph the distances from one capital to several other capitals.
2. Have students graph a cross-section of the topography on a line graph.
3. Research facts about capitals or countries from any data source.

   
    
    

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