Geography Quest: Brazil

This post contains an affiliate link. Thanks for your support!

Did you follow along with the treasure hunt from last week? First things first! Your answers from last week:

• Vatican City
• Mongolia
• China
• Italy
• France
• Portugal
• Brazil

The country of focus this week is Brazil. I thought it would be fun to share a video with you. We had some camera trouble requiring lots of takes and I’m pretty sure this is not a flattering angle, but I think you’ll enjoy walking through this week’s challenge with me. Click in! Written directions are below as well, but I give details on the maps if you’d like to hear them.

Our Country of Focus is Brazil

Some talking points & activities for you and your students:

• What continent is Brazil on?
• What is the capital city?
• Trace the border of Brazil on the map.
• Name and label (if it’s not already on the map) the countries surrounding Brazil.
• Locate the Amazon River and label it.
• What is the population of Brazil? How is population distributed around the country?
• What is the climate of Brazil?
• Explore the physical map of Brazil- notice the climate and the topography. Use an atlas to see what industry is in the country. Tell about how the industry matches the climate.
• Use Google Earth to explore the river. You can click on the points along the river and it will show you pictures of the region. This is fun to do and see what the river is like by getting the grand Google tour!

Exploring the Watershed of the Amazon River

A few ideas:

• Define watershed- great opportunity if you haven’t introduced this concept to your kids.
• Where does the Amazon River begin?
• Where does the river end?
• How many major rivers flow into the Amazon? Take a look at where those tributaries originate.
• Talk about how watershed management can be tricky since different political entities are often involved with the various pieces of the watershed. This requires cooperation which can be hard to come by.
• Compare the land area of the watershed with the total land area of the country.

Using maps for studying Brazil

I printed two maps for this activity. The first is a physical map which shows the topography and climate of the Brazil. I could have printed it in black and white, but I chose to add the color so it’s easier to see the physical features.

The other map is black and white and I layered the map with country borders, country names, rivers, and river names. With WonderMaps, I can choose how I want the map made based on what my kids are focusing on in our lesson or project. Since I wanted to target the watershed of the Amazon River, I wanted to highlight the rivers and their names only.

You can take this brief study of Brazil in any direction you’d like. Feel free to leave comments with ideas if there’s a geography themed item you want us to hit on while we are Questing together. If you haven’t signed up yet to follow by email, click through and you won’t miss a thing at Blog, She Wrote!