Elevation in South America

Elevation is distance above sea level.z Mountain icon
It is geographically important for three reasons.

First, air gets colder when it rises.
This has a direct effect on life.

Second, cold air can hold less water vapor.
As air gets pushed up a mountain, it often
forms clouds, and therefore high places usually

get more rain and snow than low places nearby.

Third, changes in elevation require energy.
As a result, it is usually hard to travel through
areas that have many changes in elevation.

These materials explore some consequences of elevation,
using examples from South America.

NOTE: This unit could go after unit 4, Distance in Australia.

Day 1: The first activity is a simple matching of continents
with descriptions of the geographic pattern of mountains.
This could be supplemented by a video or reading
about basic plate tectonics. The “Simple Environment”
clickable activity map can provide a geographic summary
as a presentation and/or a handout for note-taking.
The mountain cutouts can be used with a floormap
to make a 3D image of world mountains.

Day 2: Temperatures go down as you go uphill. This can be illustrated
by making “thermometer graphs” of temperatures at some
important cities at various elevations in the Andes Mountains.

z-S-America-Climagraph-scaffold-iconThese figures can be supplemented with readings and photos
about conditions at different elevations. Use “altitude zonation”
as keywords to see typical textbook diagrams that show
plants, animals, and crops at different elevations.

Option: Here is a simple matching activity that uses
the climagraphs described in the North America  unit.

Option: The locations of capital cities also illustrates the “value”
of elevation for places near the equator.

Day 3: Finding the source of fast-food ingredients
provides a good illustration of how human land use
takes advantage of the conditions at various elevations.

Day 4: Mountains have a strong but indirect effect
on economic life in western South America
(and in many other places around the world),
because metallic minerals are often concentrated
by the geologic processes that make mountains.
Here is a simple handout and a more complex
activity based on a clickable world map:

These map inquiries can be supplemented by stories
about mineral exploration, the colonial gold trade,
or even child labor in mines.

Day 5: Mountains usually make transportation difficult.
Here is an especially vivid way to show this process:
use the internet to make a virtual tour along the route
followed by Bolivar’s or San Martin’s army during the
South American wars for independence.  Here are
some teacher notes for an example from YouTube:

Extension: Spanish explorers, conquistadores,
and missionaries came into South America
along lowland rivers and highland roads.
This map shows places named after Catholic Saints.

Using placenames as clues to make a map
of language regions is a high-interest way
to look at  colonization in South America;
the activity can be set up as a mystery place
until you reveal its location (perhaps by using
the clickable map; that map also allows you
to make custom activity forms, for example
with fewer placenames for slower readers).

Extension: A look at the global pattern of prevailing winds
and ocean currents helps explain why every European country
wanted a colony on the northern coast of South America
one of the small Caribbean islands – this was the first place
to land and resupply after crossing the ocean.

Summary: At the end of this unit, students
should be able to explain how the idea of elevation
can help us understand the natural environments
and the pattern of population in South America.

This idea can also help provide perspective for
for a capstone project about a current-event topic
such as deforestation in the Amazon lowlands,
agricultural expansion in the intermediate elevations,
a biological crisis such as the Zika virus,
or child labor in highland mines.