Every person, including yourself, has a regular route that he or she travels from home to places such as school, a best friend’s house, the mall, a favorite restaurant, the movie theater, sports facilities, the park, the library, church, music lessons, the dentist, the doctor, and relatives’ homes. You may have other places where you go on a regular basis. By marking your tracks on a map for a week, you can observe the pattern your tracks make. Compare your tracks with other students to see the similar or different patterns you make.

Activity 1:

Trace Your Tracks

Check the places you go weekly from the list below. Using a copy of your city street map, trace the routes you take from home to those places. Use a different color for each route. Make a key for your map to show what the colors represent. You may add more places to the list.

Answer these questions:

1. How much space of the town do you cover in an average week? All, a lot, half, some, not much?

2. Do you and your friends have similar routes? If yes, list some of the places that are the same.

3. Do most of your friends live outside or inside the city limits?

4. Do you travel more by foot or by motor transportation? Using street names and directions, describe one route you take by foot. Using street names and directions, describe one route you take by motor transportation.

5. Are there parts of your town that you have never seen? Are they in the same area where you live? What direction are they from where you live?

6. Name some places in town that you’d like to visit on a regular basis?

7. How do the geographical and physical features of the town limit where you go (i.e. train tracks, waterways, bridges, tunnels, interstate, highway, etc.)?

8. How do the seasons of the year make a difference as to where you travel in town?

9. Explain how time and nearness to home determine where you shop, go to the movies, play, etc.

10. What conclusions can you draw about where you live and what you do?

Activity 2:

Community Challenger

What are your thoughts and observations about this issue? Everyone complains that there is nothing for kids in this town. I agree or disagree and here’s why: