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Landmarks over Time

Grades

This lesson plan was written for grades 6–8.

Objectives

Students will:

Materials

Materials needed are:

Procedure

1. Allow students to choose one of the following Texas cities to compare: Austin, Corpus Christi, Dallas, El Paso, Fort Worth, Galveston, Houston, Laredo, or San Antonio.

2. Have students access bird’s-eye views of their chosen cities from the Amon Carter Museum’s Texas Bird’s-Eye Views Web site, http://www.birdseyeviews.org. (Some of the cities will have two or more views to choose from.)

3. Have students define the term landmark. The Miriam-Webster Dictionary defines the noun landmark as follows:

4. Challenge students to look at the city and try to identify landmarks. Have them record their observations on the Landmark Identification Chart.

5. Have students access satellite images of their cities by following these steps:

Challenge students to look at the satellite images and try to find the landmarks they identified in their bird’s-eye view. Have them record their observations on the Landmark Identification Chart.

6. Encourage students to formulate questions about the history of the city based on their comparisons of the bird’s-eye view and satellite images.

7. Have students describe the landmarks found on both images and those that only appeared in one. Have them speculate as to why some landmarks withstood the test of time and why some did not appear on the satellite image. Record the students’ explanations.

Assessment

Instruct each student to write a summary statement about how their chosen city changed over time and record it at the bottom of the Landmark Identification Chart.

TEKS Connections

Social Studies

Language Arts

This lesson plan was created by Wendy Coleman, Fort Worth ISD educator, to accompany the Texas Bird’s-Eye Views Web site produced by the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, and was made possible by a generous grant from Burlington Northern Santa Fe Foundation representing BNSF Railway Company.