Comparing Communities: Urban, Suburb, and Rural
These sites have information about the characteristics of communities. Learn about urban, suburb and rural communities and discover how they differ. Includes photographs and lesson plans. An eThemes resource on urban wildlife is included.
Grades
- 3,
- 4
Links
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Scholastic: Communities
Explore these links to learn about jobs and other information relating to communities.
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Kid Friendly Cities: Component Cities
This is a list of component cities, the Census Bureau's official name for suburbs. Click on a name for statistics about that city. Use these statistics to compare cities.
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Kid Friendly Cities: Major Cities
Click on a city name to compare the city's statistics to other cities.
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Kids and Community
Learn what a city planner does and the importance of city planning.
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Neigborhood and Communities
This site has a wealth of lesson plans for teaching about communities and their various components. The link "The City" is especially effective in teaching the parts of a community. NOTE: The site includes ads.
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PBS: Build a Community
This site lets you try to create your own virtual community. Follow the instructions and navigate through the site.
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National Geographic: The New Suburb
This interactive site lets you explore a new way to design suburbs. NOTE: The site includes ads.
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SuccessLink: Your Town
This lesson plan has students study their own community and then design a brochure.
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Comparing Communities
This lesson plan has students learn about other communities by hearing guest speakers share information.
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PBS: Big Apple History
PBS Kids presents information on the history of New York City. Click on "Parents and Teachers" to get to "Resource Pages." Using the resources students can learn about the history of towns in their state.
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Discovery Schools: Exploring Your Community
This lesson plan can be adapted for the younger grades. It suggests that students create videos of their community.
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Lesson Plans Page: How Communities are Different
This lesson plan offers some ideas on how you can get students to compare different communities. The lesson also mentions to children's books relating to communities. NOTE: The site includes ads.
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National Geographic: Cities and Suburbs
Students can look at a map showing the population density of the United States. Teachers can look at lesson plans for many different grades. NOTE: The site includes ads.
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Farm Road
Students can look at photographs of farm scenes.
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eThemes Resource: Animals: Urban Wildlife
Learn about the problem of animals living in urban areas. Find out what humans can do to learn to co-exist with the wildlife.
Education Standards
