First Week Map Exercise

Every year about now I start wondering what I want to do the first week of school.  On the first day I actually spend most of the time just getting to know my students and perhaps giving them a small overview of the class.

But on the second class I like to get into why it is important to study whatever we are learning.  So for world history, looking at this "What's across the ocean" series of maps might be a great exercise. First off, a lot of my students go to the beach and few wonder what is on the other side (in our case) of the Atlantic Ocean.  My idea would be to start with the students drawing the world's continents, major rivers they know, etc. and then looking at this article.  While you are on it, you could tie in different maps and show the great West Wing clip below.