Geography: Travel Posters

An engaging way to stir your students' interest in geography is to create a "travel poster" for the country that you are studying. (Check a book* out from the library or search the Internet for photos to use for this project.)

Directions:

1. Create a background on the white paper by drawing a pastel (or crayon) rendering of the landscape of the country. (Our sample is of the Bahamas, so we made a pastel sunset and ocean.)

2. Create many items with which to make a collage. Either cut out actual photos of the national bird, flower, tree (etc) or make cut paper renditions of them. (In our sample, we made a pink flamingo, plus flowers and leaves from cut construction paper.)

3. Create a drawing or cut paper rendition of a famous landmark from that county. You may also just cut out a photo of it and use that, if you wish. (In our sample, we used cut paper to make the lighthouse.)

4. Glue all of your items down onto the paper in a creative way. (We put the landmark in the center, the leaves on the top and bottom, the flowers on the sides and the bird on the bottom.)

5. On another piece of white paper, creatively write the name of the country or use a word processing program to make it. Cut this out and glue it to the poster.

* I recommend the "Enchantment of the World" series of geographical books to be used as a reference. Check with your local library or bookstore.

Printing of this art lesson plan is allowed for personal or educational use. It may not be copied for resale or reprinting without the author's permission. Copyright 2003 Karine Bauch.