Exploration Math

Reading maps is much like looking at coordinate grids.  The latitude and longitude lines resemble the x and y axises so much, that it is easy to make the comparison.  So when studying about the early European Explorers, it seemed natural to combine math with a geography lesson.

I began by giving my students some generic coordinates to map on a coordinate grid.   Combined with an anchor chart, this served as a good way to introduce the idea of coordinate grids as a math standard in 5th grade.  They plotted individual points as well as connected ones.  They then were given more coordinates, but this time, the grid itself was overlaid on top of a map of Europe and the Americas.  I gave the students a set of coordinates that were roughly the stopping points on the journeys of a few famous early European explorers.   The students needed to then plot the journeys of Christopher Columbus and Leif Erikson, whose journey points they were given.  Doing this showed them how to not only plot points, but to avoid land masses when connecting the two destination points.

Finally, after all of the front loading and guided practice, I set my students off on the task of mapping 8 European explorers from the Age of Exploration on their own.  I gave my students a blank map of the world (that you can find here. ) They then were given a set of coordinates for all 8 of the explorers.  The kids needed to find the first coordinate and then connect it to the second set of coordinates.  In some cases, there was a third stop on the voyage (and in the case of Sir Francis Drake, 5!)

Kids learned very quickly that some voyages took them around South America or Africa or even up north in the Arctic, and if you drew a straight line you would have to sail your boat across land...a feat they knew was impossible.  The students needed to problem solve a way to remedy this situation.  They figured out that the boats needed to go around (and possibly discover things like the Cape of South Africa in the process.)

This task proved to be a challenge for many of the students.  Trying to map routes that basically went the same way, or that started in the same place, was difficult for the kids to wrap their heads around.  They really wanted everyone to have completely different coordinates, however since many of them began their journeys in Spain or Portugal or England or France, the coordinate set was all interrelated.  The students then had to become organized problem solvers to keep all of their data and coordinates from becoming a big jumbled mess.

For the final piece, once all of the math was done, I had the students write a little summary paragraph of the voyage.  I gave them a super simple 8 section table (I just sent it out through Google Classroom...you can get a copy here.) and they inserted each of the names of the explorers and then information they researched.

When this was done, I combined the "Zentangle Ships" the students created, had them paint a globe, and put those two pieces together.  They are now hanging in my room....and look gorgeous!

So there you have it....a social studies/math connection with a little research and art thrown in :)   Would you like the resources I used to teach this to my students?  You can pick them up here.