Urban, Suburban, or Rural? a GPS cache activity: by Hope Vincent Social Studies GLE 14

Urban Community: What do you see in an urban community?

Baton Rouge is an Urban Community.

Urban Communities have lots of things to do and places to visit: restaurants parks large buildings

Suburban Community: How is the suburban community similar to the urban community? How is it different?

S Port Allen is a Suburban Community.

Suburban Communities have lots houses.

Rural Community: How is a rural community different from both the urban and suburban communities?

Erwinville is an rural Community.

Rural Communities are mostly fields and farming areas.

Your mission: Use the coordinates provided to locate all the clues to the different communities. Once you have located your cache, read about the character and determine which community they live in: rural, suburban, or urban. Gather all your clues and then race back to the classroom to see if your answers are correct. We will go over them together. The race is on…. GOOD LUCK to all! The winners get a prize!

Tell us about your community. Use Skype to visit with other children or adults that live in different types of communities. Compare their communities to the community in which you live.

A Day in the Life Imagine that you are one of the characters that you discovered in the geocaching activity. Write a diary entry from a day in the life of that character including details about what that character might see and do in his/her community.

Teacher’s Only: The following slides are the clues that go into the caches. You will need to print the slide show where you have 4 pages per slide, then you could easily cut out the following slides to place into the caches. You will have to set up your own coordinates for the caches. *Quick Tip: to print 4 per slide you go to File, Print, and (on the left) click where it says “print what.” Then click on “handouts.” Then you can choose how many slides per page you would like to print, depending on the size you would like.

1.Charlie Charlie lives on a farm and wakes up early every morning to milk his cow. What type of community do you think Charlie lives in?

2. Amy Amy jets out of her apartment and swings by the donut shop for breakfast, before catching a taxi on her way to school. What type of community do you think Amy lives in?

3. Eric and John Eric’s neighbor, John, walks over to his house to meet him so they can walk to the bus stop together. Everyone from the neighborhood meets there to catch the bus together for school. What type of community do you think Eric and John live in?

4. Lisa Lisa has to walk to school through a sugar cane field. What type of community do you think Lisa lives in?

5. Joe Joe’s mom doesn’t really like to cook. So, for almost every meal they walk across the busy city streets to a diner. What type of community do you think Joe lives in?

Answer Key: 1.Charlie – rural 2.Amy – urban 3.Eric and John – suburban 4.Lisa – rural 5.Joe - urban

Cache Integration Short Lesson Plan Lesson Title: Urban, Suburban, or Rural? Subject: Social Studies– 3 rd grade Brief description of Lesson: Part I: Power point TTW show powerpoint to class introducing the terms urban, suburban, and rural. TTW introduce caches and GPS to students explaining activity (through powerpoint). Part II: Cache Search Characters will be placed in the caches and their lives will be described in the cache. TLW work with partners to visit the caches and record which community each character lives in. The class will review characters and their communities Part III: A Day in the Life TLW research one character’s type of community further and write a diary entry from a day in that character’s life, including evidence of what to do and see in that type of community from Skype/research. Materials Needed (including electronic templates): Powerpoint introducing topic Container for caches Characters and where they live (to put in caches) Name: Hope Vincent Address: