Directions:

Directions:


1. Straighten out the hanger's hook and cover half of the
triangle part of the hanger with foil. Fold the edges, and
tape or glue in place.

2. Fill the container with sand or loose dirt, put on the lid,
and mark it N, S, E, and W. Poke the hanger through the
center of the lid. The hanger should touch the bottom of
the container and turn freely in the hole.



3. Put the container outside with the N facing north. When the
wind blows, take a look at your weather vane. The open half
of the vane shows the direction from which the wind is
coming.

Reprinted from Sesame Street Magazine Parent's Guide, June
1986. Copyright Children's Television Workshop.



Relationships within Places:
Humans and Environments


How do people adjust to their environment? What are the
relationships among people and places? How do they change it
to better suit their needs? Geographers examine where people
live, why they settled there, and how they use natural
resources. For example, Hudson Bay, the site of the first
European settlement in Canada, is an area rich in wildlife and
has sustained a trading and fur trapping industry for hundreds
of years. Yet the climate there was described by early settlers
as "nine months of ice followed by three months of mosquitoes."
People can and do adapt to their natural surroundings.


Notice How You Control Your Surroundings


Everyone controls his or her surroundings. Look at the way
you arrange furniture in your home. You place the tables and
chairs in places that suit the shape of the room and the
position of the windows and doors. You also arrange the room
according to how people will use it.

* Try different furniture arrangements with your children.
If moving real furniture is too strenuous, try working
with doll house furniture or paper cutouts. By cutting out
paper to represent different pieces of furniture, children
can begin to learn the mapmaker's skill in representing
the three-dimensional real world.

* Ask your children to consider what the yard might look
like if you did not try to change it by mowing grass,
raking leaves or planting shrubs or trees. You might add a
window box if you don't have a yard. What would happen if
you didn't water the plants?

* Walk your children around your neighborhood or a park area
and have them clean up litter. How to dispose of waste is
a problem with a geographic dimension.

* Take your children to see some examples of how people have
shaped their environment: bonsai gardens, reservoirs,
terracing, or houses built into hills. Be sure to talk
with them about how and why these phenomena came to be.

* If you don't live on a farm, try to visit one. Many cities
and States maintain farm parks for just this purpose. Call
the division of parks in your area to find out where there
is one near you. Farmers use soil, water, and sun to grow
crops. They use ponds or streams for water, and build
fences to keep animals from running away.


Notice How You Adapt to Your Surroundings


People don't always change their environment. Sometimes
they are shaped by it. Often people must build roads around
mountains. They must build bridges over rivers. They construct
storm walls to keep the ocean from sweeping over beaches. In
some countries, people near coasts build their houses on stilts
to protect them from storm tides or periodic floods.

* Go camping. It is easy to understand why we wear long
pants and shoes when there are rocks and brambles on the
ground, and to realize the importance to early settlers of
being near water when you no longer have the convenience
of a faucet.

* If you go to a park, try to attend the nature shows that
many parks provide. You and your children may learn about
the local plants and wildlife and how the natural features
have changed over time.



Movement:
People Interacting on the Earth


People are scattered unevenly over the Earth. How do they
get from one place to another? What are the patterns of
movement of people, products, and information ? Regardless of
where we live, we rely upon each other for goods, services, and
information. In fact, most people interact with other places
almost every day. We depend on other places for the food,
clothes, and even items like the pencil and paper our children
use in school. We also share information with each other using
telephones, newspapers, radio, and television to bridge the
distances.