INTRODUCTION
Students will find out how many national parks are in their state and figure
out how much of the area of the state is composed of national parks.
SUGGESTED TIME ALLOWANCE
40 minutes
OBJECTIVES
Students will:
become aware of the national parks in their state.
realize how much of their home state is comprised of national parks.
compute the total acreage of the parks in their state.
Review the following vocabulary words with students before beginning the
lesson: acre, acreage, square (as in square miles), percentage,
convert.
Advise students that their task is to figure out what percentage of
the land in their state is made up of state parks. Begin by having students
find out the area of their state by looking here: http://infoplease.com/ipa/A0108355.html. Have students
enter this information on their worksheet.
To convert this square mile figure, use this conversion chart: http://www.onlineconversion.com/area.htm. Students should
set the first counter at "square miles," and the second counter
at "acres," and then type in the square mile figure showing the
area of their state from their worksheet. Record the number.
Have students search for the number of state parks and their acreage by
finding their state at http://www.factmonster.com/states.html and scrolling
down to the State Parks heading. (Several states only have state forest
information; this can be used instead of state park information, if necessary.)
Students should note the number of parks and the total acreage on their
worksheets.
Ask students how they could figure out what percentage of their state’s
total land is comprised of state parks. Lead students to conclude that by
dividing the total acreage of the state (which was converted above) by the
total acreage of the state parks, the resulting percentage will be that
part of the state that is covered.
ASSESSMENT
Check answers as a class. If students have gotten a wrong answer, help them
retrace their steps to find their mistake.
EXTENSION ACTIVITIES
Hang a state road map on the wall. Have students locate as many state parks
as they can find on the map, marking them with a pin or adhesive star. Using the
scale of miles on the map, have them figure the distance each park is from the
city where they reside.
Using the site http://www.nps.gov/parks.html, which links
to the National Park Service for all 50 states, ask students to research various
state parks and find one they’d like to visit. Make posters telling about
the park’s features.
STANDARDS CORRELATION
Solves real-world problems involving number operations (e.g., computations
with dollars and cents)
