Students will investigate how shopping malls change natural environments. Students will study a mall and its immediate surroundings to understand concepts involved in the formation of urban heat islands.
Refer to Mission Geography Module 3, Investigation 2 for content background information and more details.
1. Distribute Module 3, Investigation 2: Briefing 1 and have students read the Background, Objectives, and Procedures.
2. Distribute Log 1 and ask students to consider how the construction of a mall affects the surrounding environment. For example, malls sometimes replace ecosystems such as forests, wetlands, or open grasslands. These ecosystems provide habitats for wildlife and play an important role in pollution control. Have students identify what will happen to the environmental features listed in the Log when a mall is built.
3. Instruct students to open the Madison Square Mall Area.kml file in Google Earth. Display the image in front of the classroom. Explain to students that this is the aerial imagery of the area around the Madison Square Mall area in Huntsville, Alabama. Next, handout What’s Hot at the Mall? Explain to students that the image on the handout is a thermal image. In the thermal image, warmer temperatures are represented by lighter shades of gray and white. Cooler temperatures are represented by darker shades. Instruct students to complete the handout.
4. After students have completed the handout, display the thermal image at the front of classroom and review student responses. Discuss how heat is absorbed and reradiated more on certain surface materials such as pavement and asphalt when compared to natural wooded areas of trees that release heat over a much longer period of time. Explain this why it feels very hot when you get out of your car on a hot sunny day at the mall and much cooler by a tree.
Materials Needed:
Mission Geography Module 3, Investigation
1: Briefing Handout (one copy of each per student) [MG_logs_activity2a.pdf]
Mission Geography Module 3, Investigation
1: Log 1 Handout (one copy of each per student) [MG_logs_activity2b.pdf]
Handout: What’s Hot at the Mall?
[Mall_activity2.pdf]
Google Earth file: Madison Square
Mall.kml
Assessment information:
Mission Geography Module 3, Investigation
1: Log 1 Assessment [MG_logs_assessment1.pdf]
Handout: What’s Hot at the
Mall? [Mall_activity2_assess.pdf]
Teacher Resources:
Mission Geography Module 3, Investigation 2 [MG_mod3-2.pdf]
Instructional Sequence | Environmental Issues: Land Use Change
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