United States Geography - US Regions & State Research Project Unit

Plan a trip through the regions of the United States with this hands-on project! Students select two states in each U.S. region to research, then complete a note page on their selected states. They find two places in each state to "visit," then use a U.S. map to plan their trip route.

What’s Included

• PDF and Google Slide versions
• Extension research page for use to differentiate the project. 
• 2 Mini-lessons 
  • taking and organizing notes
  • writing a bibliography
• Rubrics are included so you can easily grade projects on social studies, presentation, and narrative writing standards. 

Included in Unit

• Research page for each of the United States regions.
• Research page for each of the 50 states
• U.S. map to plan a trip across the country
• Student project letter (uneditable)
• Optional back to the state research page with spots for topics such as natural resources and climate. Teachers can use this page or leave it off, depending upon their needs/time frame.
• Organizing Your Notes Mini-Lesson
• Writing bibliography notes page
• A student checklist
• Rubrics for social studies, presentation, and narrative writing. Use one or all for different grades (each focuses on different standards.)

Teachers Love It!

• “This is perfect. This is easy to follow along for my students and with just a small amount of research, they can learn more about our states. Thank you for this resource!” – Ashley Stafford (TPT Seller) 
• “My students loved researching different places across the country. This gave them some great future vacation ideas :) Thank you so much for this wonderful resource.” – Melissa G. 

Teacher Notes

• Integrate social studies and language arts with narrative writing! Have students write a journal about their trip across the country.
• Flexible resource! Parts and pieces can be utilized in a wide variety of ways, depending upon how you plan to organize your class. Here are some examples: 
  • 1. I used it to research a trip around the United States, as my standards are to study the regions of the United States. We researched a region per week in our 30 minute center. I allowed my students to select which state in each region they wanted to visit, but I also have a printer in my room that made it easy to make copies. Teachers could assign a state or have students preselect states.
  • 2. This could also be used to research individual states. Teachers could create a class book on the United States, with each student researching one or two states. For 4th grade teachers teaching state history, just use your state's page.
  • 3. Extend the research project into a writing project, having students use their research to create a narrative essay on “their trip.
  • 4. If you have class penpals, you could use these forms to help students research information about where they live. This will help them add more detail in their letters!

Standards & Testing

This unit could be used to cover standards for:

• state research
• U.S. regions/geography
• nonfiction research
• writing a narrative

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