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Geography Games for the US

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"I stumbled upon your fun interactive geography games from a link on the Massachusetts Geographic Alliance Website. Since then, your games have become quite a hit with my competitive colleagues!"
--Candice Gomes, Education Outreach Coordinator, Boston Public Library

Sheppard Software's geography games were featured in the Boston Public Library's 2006 Exhibition on Mapping!

"Terrific online educational games, especially geography."
-- Dallas Children's Museum

"I am a middle school social studies teacher who also sponsors a geography club after school. We love your site for geography games."
--Eleanor Terry and the Dixon Middle School Geography Detective Club

"Awesome site... it is the only reason I am passing my World Geography class!" --Stephen

"We love your interactive maps and are using them for 10th grade world history." Thanks, Susan McCormick

"Let me say that you guys have an awesome website. I stumbled across your site one day, and it has been the easiest, most effective, and really
the most fun method for learning geography that I've
found." --David Weaver

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USA Geography - Map Game - Geography Online Games

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"I stumbled upon your fun interactive geography games from a link on the Massachusetts Geographic Alliance Website. Since then, your games have become quite a hit with my competitive colleagues!" --Candice Gomes, Education Outreach Coordinator, Boston Public Library Sheppard Software's geography games were featured in the Boston Public Library's 2006 Exhibition on Mapping!

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Resources

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Map

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Natural Resource Video

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Practice Skills

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Powtoons on the parts of the Earth

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Created using PowToon -- Free sign up at http://www.powtoon.com/youtube/ -- Create animated videos and animated presentations for free. PowToon is a free tool that allows you to develop cool animated clips and animated presentations for your website, office meeting, sales pitch, nonprofit fundraiser, product launch, video resume, or anything else you could use an animated explainer video.

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Learning about Landforms

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Geography on Brainpop - sign in
Lionspridepto
Hearusroar

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Geography of Georgia

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Georgia Map / Geography of Georgia/ Map of Georgia - Worldatlas.com

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English troops marched south and captured Savannah, and in short order they controlled most of Georgia. However, when General Cornwallis surrendered his British troops in 1781, the bloody land war for independence was over and Georgia would become the fourth state to ratify America's new Constitution.

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Basic Needs of People

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September 18, 2013

AIM: How did humans in the Paleolithic Age use their
environment to meet their basic needs?

DN: Look at the cave paintings ( primary source) from the Paleolithic Age. How did humans get their food during the Paleolithic Age?

HW#2
Due Friday, 9/20/13
In a paragraph, compare and contrast life today to life during the Paleolithic Age. Use and underline at least three vocabulary words in your description. For example:

Life today is a lot easier thant life during the Paleolithic Age. Today we get our food from stores while in the Paleolithic Age, people were hunter-gatherers. Another way life is easier today is....

Notes
What was the Stone Age?

The Stone Age was when people used stone tools.

The Paleolithic Age (Old Stone Age) was when humans were nomads and hunted and gathered their food. It began 2.5 million years ago and ended about about 10,000 years ago.

The Neolithic Age (New Stone Age) began about 10,000 years ago when humans began farming.

The Stone Age ended about 5,000 years ago when humans began using metal.

How Paleolithic Age People Met Their Basic Needs (Food, Clothing, Shelter)

They hunted animals.

The earliest human beings appeared on Earth an estimated 2.5 million years ago. For nearly that entire time, humans lived as hunter-gatherers. They hunted wild animals and gathered edible plants. It was a simple existence. Early modern humans, who had populated much of the globe by 30,000 years ago, continued the hunting-and-gathering way of life. They lived at a time when the last Ice Age was ending. Earth's climate was cycling through a series of warm and cold periods. Sea levels rose and fell. Across great areas of Earth's surface, different forms of vegetation came and went. Humans survived by adapting to this changing environment. Like the environment, the humans, too, changed over time.

Self-Sufficiency During the Stone Age  A few hunter-gatherer groups still exist today. They do not represent the great diversity of ancient hunting-and-gathering societies, but their way of life offers clues about early modern humans of the distant past. Those clues, along with evidence gathered by archaeologists, suggest that in a hunting-and-gathering economy the people were largely self-sufficient. They secured their own food supply and moved from place to place as needed to maintain it. They clothed themselves in the furs of animals that they had killed for food. They lived in caves, or they built shelters out of available materials, such as trees, brush, and animal hides. They crafted tools out of wood, bone, antlers, and stone.

Most of the materials used by ancient hunter-gatherers have disintegrated with the passage of time. The one that has survived the best is stone. When archaeologists dig at sites once inhabited by hunter-gatherers, nearly all of the tools and other artifacts that they find are made of stone. That explains the name given to the period between the emergence of stone tools and the later appearance of metal tools.Archaeologists call it the Stone Age. The Stone Age began some 2.5 million years ago. Archaeologists divide it into two major periods: the Paleolithic ("Old Stone") and the Neolithic ("New Stone").

Stone Age Tools  When archaeologists find stone tools, they use them to gain insight into the group that produced them. By studying an ancient people's tools, they can judge how advanced the community was. The earliest hunter-gatherers' "toolkit" included stone flakes-sharp pieces of stone that could be used like knives to butcher animals. To produce them, people hit a large stone with a fist-sized stone in order to flake off pieces.

After a number of flakes had been removed, what was left of the original stone had a jagged edge. This stone tool might have served as a chopper, useful in cutting wood, cracking nuts, or breaking open bones for their marrow. It might have been used as a digger, useful for gathering edible roots. Both types of tool could also be used as weapons for hunting or for fighting.

Knowledge of how to make tools was culturally transmitted. That is, it was passed from one generation to the next. In this way it became part of the hunter-gatherer band's culture-the shared beliefs, practices, and traditions of a group.

Through much of the Stone Age, tool-making techniques developed slowly.Archaeologists identify few differences in the design of tools made during that time. Near the end of the Paleolithic period, however, some dramatic changes took place. One advance was the development of composite tools, like the spear. It combined a sharp point with a wooden shaft, for thrusting or throwing.Other tools with a variety of specific uses began to appear. For the first time, hunter-gatherers began to use
needles, often made of bone, to sew their clothing. Crude flakes were now worked into thinner blades and arrowheads.

The Quest for Food  Hunter-gatherers relied for survival on the natural plant and animal resources found in their surroundings. They used their tools to gather, hunt, fish, and trap those resources. In the forested areas of Europe, for example, early modern humans gathered wild fruits, nuts, roots, and seeds. In meadows and on open plains, wild cereals grew along with wild peas, beans, and other plants. Game animals included rabbits, deer, and wild pigs.

To maintain a successful hunting-and-gathering economy, these early modern humans had to be mobile. That is, they had to be able to relocate often and quickly. Hunter-gatherers moved from one place to the next in an ongoing quest for food.

Much of their movement related to the seasonal migrations of the game animals that they hunted. They followed herds of deer and other animals as they moved from one grazing land to another. They trekked to coastal locations and rivers during the season when fish gathered there to produce and deposit eggs. They traveled to local lakes and marshes when it was time for migrating birds to stop there to feed.Gathering fruits, nuts, and other vegetative sources of food was also a seasonal affair. It, too, called for mobility.

Having to be able to move with the seasons had its limitations. Hunter-gatherers could not afford to gather possessions They had no pack animals to help them carry loads of belongings from one place to another. They had to carry everything themselves. For this reason, they took only a few tools, weapons, and other goods with them.

Mobility was a key to the hunting-and-gathering way of life. Nonetheless, later hunter-gatherers maintained "central places"-sites within their territory to which they continually returned. These base camps were usually located in a resource-rich area, perhaps along a seacoast or lakeshore or near known supplies of food or fuel. There they slept, made their tools, cooked their meals, and took part in social activities.

Interactions Within and Between Groups  Hunter-gatherer bands consisted mainly of kin groups-people who claim a common ancestor. Bands typically ranged in size from 30 to 50 people. They shared food and otherwise worked together for common ends. Their economy was based on a division of labor.Men did the hunting and women did the gathering. Nonetheless, members of hunter-gatherer bands generally enjoyed equal status in the group. They had no real government-no one person had political power. But they did have leaders. These were probably elders who had the experience and personality necessary to gain the respect of the group.

Hunter-gatherers traveled far and wide to exploit available resources. The territory that they typically covered during a year might have ranged from 50 to 100 miles in diameter. Their seasonal movements sometimes led to contacts with other groups. They might have exchanged goods with those groups. But competition between groups could also lead to conflict over scarce resources. Tools might then become weapons.

Increased Social Complexity  At the end of the Paleolithic period, some hunter-gatherer communities were becoming more complex. They exhibited characteristics that set them apart from traditional hunting-and-gathering groups. Their populations were higher. Their base camps were larger and tended to become near-permanent settlements. They developed equipment for processing food and systems for storing and preserving it. Some hunter-gatherers may have sowed wild seeds to expand their source of plant food. The next step for these complex societies was to begin farming the land.

Stone Age from nycteacher1 on Vimeo.

Paragraph Writing Checklist

1. The paragraph begins with a topic sentence that tells what the paragraph is about.
During the Paleolithic Age, humans used nature to meet their basic needs.

2. Body sentences give more information about the topic sentence.
Give examples about how Paleolithic Age people used nature to obtain their food, clothing, and shelter.

3. The last sentence is either a summary sentence or a conclusion sentence.
Nature was important to humans in the Paleolithic Age because...

4. Each sentence has a subject and a verb.
Subject: What/Who is being written about: Humans, Paleolithic Age people, they, animals, fur from animals.
Verb: What the subject isdoing: migrated, hunted animals, wore, lived in.

5. Each sentence begins with a capital letter.

6. Each sentence ends with punctuation.

7. If the paragraph has any proper nouns, each proper noun begins with a capital letter.
Africa, Paleolithic Age humans.

8. Words are spelled correctly. Use a dictionary and your textbook.

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How did Paleolithic People meet their basic needs?

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September 18, 2013 AIM : How did humans in the Paleolithic Age use their environment to meet their basic needs? DN : Look at the cave paintings ( primary source) from the Paleolithic Age. How did humans get their food during the Paleolithic Age?