Seven Wonders of the World: Panoramic Views

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Activity Description

In this activity, students are shown a panoramic view of the Great Wall of China and asked to answer some questions about it. This Web site offers panoramic views of the seven wonders of the world: the Great Wall of China, the Colosseum, Petra, the Taj Mahal, Machu Picchu, Rio de Janeiro, and Chichen Itza. There is a brief description of each place, but you will want to have your students do a bit more research to complete a geography lesson.

Screenshot of the Great Wall of China panorama

Preparation

1. Choose the place you want your students to visit, or assign a small group to each panoramic view. For this example, the Great Wall of China is chosen.
2. Be sure the site works as it should at your school before using it with your students.
3. If you choose a different panoramic view, you will need to create some questions. If you use the Great Wall, we have provided some questions and an answer key. See the Example Documents and print the questions for your students.

How-To

1. Share the Example Web Site (above) with the class, projecting the image at full screen. Ask students what they see. Have they seen it before? Do they know where it is? Do they know anything about the history of it?
2. Ask students to read the very brief two paragraphs about the Great Wall (below the picture). Ask comprehension questions. See Example Document, Questions about the Great Wall.
3. Ask students to do more research about the Great Wall. There are many sites with information about the Great Wall, but students can use this one to research and answer the questions on the handout provided. Answering these questions will provide practice skimming and scanning, in addition to doing research and learning more about the Great Wall.
4. You can ask students to visit a certain number of places to do their research, to write a short research report, to create slides on the topic, or to give an oral report.
5. Have students share the results of their research. You can also ask them to write some additional questions based on their research and ask the other students to answer their questions.

Teacher Tips

• You can turn your students loose to do research, but only if you have already taught some research strategies, and how to think critically about the Web sites they find. Also be sure to teach them about avoiding ads, as these can be a real problem if they contain malware.

More Ways

• This lesson can provide a model for a lesson on any of the seven wonders, and there are also other panoramic views on the site that you can use.

Program Areas

• ASE: High School Equivalency Preparation

Documents

• Great Wall - Answer Key.pdf - Answer Key for Great Wall Worksheet
• Great Wall Questions.pdf - Great Wall Worksheet Questions

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