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Teaching about World Geography
Social studies gets put on the backburner. With all of the resources and support for math, reading, and writing, there is very few quality social studies resources that help teachers understand how to tackle the subject. It’s no wonder that many teachers and students find it boring. But social studies is anything but boring. It is the study of humanity, from economics to history to culture to geography. Learning about how the world works is so important! Especially when you’re teaching about world geography, a topic that helps students understand the world, navigate safely, and think critically about media.
In this guide, you will explore everything you need to know to teach about world geography. Click on any of the links below to explore a specific area of this World Geography Guide.
- World Geography Overview
- World Geography Pacing Guide
- World Geography Skills
- How to Make Geography Relevant to Kids
- Free World Geography Lesson Plan
- World Geography Resources for Teachers
- World Geography Videos
- World Geography Games
- Comprehensive World Geography Unit
World Geography Overview
World Geography Pacing Guide
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 |
| What is Geography? | Maps vs. Globes | Parts of a Map | Compass Rose | Cardinal Directions |
| Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 |
| Hemispheres | Longitude and Latitude | Continents and Oceans | Country with Research Project | U.S. Regions |
| Day 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14 | Day 15 |
| States and Provinces | Urban and Rural Communities | Landforms | Bodies of Water | Review and Assess |
Note: Each lesson is 50-100 minutes long.
This is the same pacing guide as the one found in my World Geography Unit.
This skill-based unit is perfect for globally-minded teachers who want to impart 21st-century skills on their students and inspire them to understand the world around them through teaching about world geography.
Included in this unit are 15 lessons with step-by-step lesson plans, engaging activities, projects, and crafts, and assessments to measure your students’ progress.
World Geography Skills
Teaching about world geography is not just about imparting knowledge. Learning world geography also means practicing a set of skills that will help students throughout their lives.
In a comprehensive world geography unit, students will learn skills like:
- Problem solving, where students address a problem and apply a practical solution. For example, if you are lost or your phone is not working, how can you find your way to your destination?
- Analytical skills, where students practice the ability to read, analyze, and create maps for a variety of purposes and audiences. Reading and creating maps creates spatial awareness, where students can scale the world onto a map.
- Critical thinking, where students review and address a variety of 21st-century challenges like population density, infrastructure, economic inequality, environmental impact, urbanization, and more.
- Research skills, where students can independently research a geography topic and find relevant and quality sources. They can synthetize their findings.
- Media literacy, where students can identify regions and countries of the world. They have awareness of the causes and impacts of an increasingly connected world and how geography relates to politics and economics.
How to Make Geography Relevant to Kids
- Use a compass and coordinates to navigate around the community
- Teach students their addresses for safety
- Explore how to use a GPS and what to do when you don’t have one (read road signs, phone/car compasses)
- Listen to the news for continents, regions, and countries
- Use Google maps to zoom in from Earth all the way to your homes to understand the scope of world geography and the relative sizes of things
- Make your classroom into a compass (game included in our Compass Rose lesson)
- Discuss population density and infrastructure in our Types of Communities lesson to better understand the news
- Check out the sport of orienteering
Free World Geography Lesson Plan
Are you looking for a way to introduce your world geography unit? Students may or may not have background knowledge about geography, so I created this What is Geography lesson plan with a reading passage, activities, and a short quiz. This lesson will help upper elementary school students:
- define geography and describe what geographers do and,
- describe the tools that geographers use to do their jobs (GPS, Atlas, Map, Globe, Compass).
In this lesson, students will read about the tools that geographers use. They will also get to apply for a geographer position at a university to think about how their skillset would be great for the job.
World Geography Resources for Teachers
At Globally Taught, we are passionate about world geography! Explore some of our other articles about world geography to help you boost creativity and engagement during your world geography lessons.
5 Free Map Tools to Spice Up World Geography
12 Creative Ways to Teach Geography Skills to Kids
World Geography Videos
A great way to engage students when teaching about world geography is through videos. Videos can be a great way to explain challenging concepts, especially for something like latitude and longitude where a visual explanation is important. Videos can also help students remember information through catchy songs and beats.
Explore some of our favorite channels for teaching about world geography.
Teacher Tip: Use safeshare.tv to share videos without ads or distractions!
World Geography Games
Games are a great way to engage students when teaching about world geography. Use games to help students memorize the continents, countries, or capitals of the world. Games can help students practice identifying latitude and longitude as well. While memorization as a learning practice has fallen out of style in recent years, I still have students learn the countries of the world using games. Playing games builds students’ awareness of the names and general locations of every country and capital.
Seterra is an entertaining and educational geography game website with more than 400 customizable quizzes. Learn about the countries, capitals, flags, oceans, lakes and more!
With GeoGuessr, get dropped anywhere from the busy streets of New York to the beautiful beaches of Bali. This is a great bell ringer or warm-up activity for any geography lesson.
With Sheppard Software‘s geography games, students can practice learning the continents, countries, capitals, and landforms of the world.
Comprehensive World Geography Unit
If you want to skip the work that goes into developing your own world geography unit, explore our Comprehensive World Geography Unit for upper-elementary students.
This unit will help you feel prepared and excited when teaching about world geography by providing you with 15 detailed lessons with more than 400 pages of activities, reading passages, crafts, and projects.
This unit will save you dozens of hours of time! Instead of patching together resources, this unit will provide you with consistent lessons that students will love. Keep reading to learn more about what’s included in our 400-page unit.
400-Page World Geography Unit for Upper Elementary Students
Dive into world geography with this highly-engaging World Geography Unit. This unit includes everything you need to help you save time and skyrocket engagement during social studies.
This bundle includes 15 lessons and over 400 pages of activities, projects, geography worksheets, games, and crafts to learn about world geography.
Add to Cart Buy on TPTUnit Details:
✦ A 3 to 4-week-long comprehensive world geography unit for elementary students
✦ Over 400 pages of lessons, readings, projects, activities, and games
✦ 1 ZIP file organized into 15 lessons by topic
You’ll Receive:
- 15 Geography Lessons
- 17 Engaging Informational Texts
- Learning Objectives and Materials Lists
- Anchor Charts and Visuals
- Dozens of Practice Activities
- Crafts, Games, Puzzles, Mnemonics, and more!
- High-Investment Research Projects
- 13 Done-for-You Lesson Quizzes
- Answer Keys and Student Samples
- 3 Fun Flipbooks
- EXCLUSIVE BONUSES: Unit Assessment (4 pgs.) with Answer Key, Unit Overview, State Standards Alignment, Flipbook Rubric
Geography Lessons Included:
- Lesson 1: What is Geography
- Lesson 2: Maps and Globes
- Lesson 3: Parts of a Map
- Lesson 4: Compass Rose and Cardinal Directions
- Lesson 5: Cardinal and Intermediate Directions
- Lesson 6: Hemispheres
- Lesson 7: Longitude and Latitude
- Lesson 8: 7 Continents and 5 Oceans
- Lesson 9: Country Research Project
- Lesson 10: States and Provinces
- Lesson 11: 5 Regions of the United States
- Lesson 12: Types of Communities (Urban, Suburban, Rural)
- Lesson 13: Landforms
- Lesson 14: Bodies of Water
- Lesson 15: Me on a Map Flipbook for review
- Unit Bonus: Geography Unit Assessment
