Travel

Resources for Teachers

Check out these interdisciplinary activity ideas and online resources for your classroom.

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Teaching Ideas

Travel Agent Apprentice

Allow students to explore America and compute expenses associated with travel. Give each student a highway map of the United States. (Students may work individually, with partners, or in cooperative groups.) In this project the students may do some or all of the following:

• Draw the names of 4-5 American cities, landmarks, places of interest, etc. out of a hat.
• Locate the places on the map, and plot the best route to see all these places, starting from their hometown.
• List the directions of travel (north, south, east, west, etc.) from hometown.
• Use the map key to compute the number of miles for a round trip.

For a further math extension to this lesson, students will choose one of the locations and:

• Compute cost of gas for the entire trip (assume 20 miles per gallon) at the average cost of a gallon of gas. Research the cost of an airplane ticket. Compare costs. (Make sure to multiply airline tickets by the amount of people traveling.)
• Compute length of trip in days, providing at least a two-day stay over. (Compute how many hours driving per day or assume an amount of miles per day.)
• Research and compute motel costs for overnights. Compare the cost to overnight camping.
• Compute costs of meals per day in restaurants. Compare this cost with grocery costs for meals. (Make sure to multiply costs of meals by the amount of people traveling.)
• Create a chart displaying/comparing the costs of travel, meals, and lodging.
• From the charts, compute various trips: most economical, most expensive, most fun (how they want to make the trip) and report out to the class.

This lesson may be extended by examining different types of currency for the trips (credit cards, cash, checks, and travelers checks). List the advantages and disadvantages of each method of currency.

A large map can be reproduced or drawn for the bulletin board to mark locations as they are reported to the class.

Related Web Sites:

• American Experience Wayback: Summer Vacation
  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/kids/
• Mapquest
  http://www.mapquest.com/
• Postcards from America
  http://www.postcardsfrom.com/
• US and Canada Travel Destinations
  http://www.nationalgeographic.com/destinations/

Modes of Travel

This lesson examines types of transportation that people use to travel in the past, present, and future. Begin by questioning students about how they got to school that mornign. Point out that walking is one means of transportation, as is a car and a bus. Explain that transportation is the way we get from one place to another.

• Brainstorm various forms of modern transportation. They might include plane, bus, car, and boat travel. Students may be encouraged to include other means such as walking, sledding, submarine, hot air balloon, etc.
• Create a chart to compare and contrast all forms of transportation. Have students decide on the variables, such as speed, comfort, cost, etc. This chart can be used to create Venn Diagrams or graphic organizers with the descriptors of the modes of travel. It can also be used to practice classification, as students classify these modes as fast travel/slow travel, economical/expensive, wheeled/no wheels, or moving many/few people.
• Students may be divided into groups or pairs to draw pictures of the various forms of travel and/or write poems describing the travel or list interesting facts.

Extensions of this lesson can include travel of the past. Students can use their same charts that they made to note descriptors of the travel. They can make timelines to show periods in time when the transportation was popular. Students can write stories of characters of earlier times as they experienced (for the first time) a ride in a new mode of transportation.

Students can use their imagination and create modes of travel for the future. They can draw their new invention and write descriptions of it. They can create ads for marketing their new travel either on posters or by acting out a television commercial.

Related Web Sites:

• National Bicycle History Archive of America
  http://members.aol.com/oldbicycle/index.html
• PBS: The American Experience: Streamliners
  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/streamliners/peopleevents/e_ica.html
• Transportation and Public Transportation
  http://www.transitpeople.org/lesson/trancovr.htm

PBS Online Resources: Sites to See

**For a complete list of travel-related PBS sites, please visit the PBS.org Travel & Expeditions neighborhood online.

• Adventure Divas: Cuba
  http://www.pbs.org/adventuredivas/
• Australia: Beyond the Fatal Shore
  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/australia/
• Great Wall Across The Yangtze
  http://www.pbs.org/greatwall/
• Hitchhiking Vietnam
  http://www.pbs.org/hitchhikingvietnam/
• The Living Edens
  http://www.pbs.org/edens/
• Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure
  http://www.pbs.org/hemingwayadventure/
• Mississippi River of Song
  http://www.pbs.org/riverofsong/
• Voyage of the Odyssey
  http://www.pbs.org/odyssey/
• Wild Indonesia
  http://www.pbs.org/wildindonesia/
• Wonders of the African World
  http://www.pbs.org/wonders/