• Reviewing What We’ve Learned: chart• Human Characteristics Natural

Characteristics• Two Peninsulas Mackinac Bridge• Literature Connection: Mackinac Bridge: The

Story of the Five Mile - Different Points of View

• Bridges need highways - Highway Map• Cities as a human characteristic• Lighthouses

Unit One: Lesson Five

To study a place geographers ask the question: What is the place like?

To answer that question geographers study the human characteristics of the place.

Human characteristics are often connected to natural (physical) characteristics. For example, people often build bridges across rivers and cities next to rivers.

Human characteristics include bridges, highways, cities and buildings.

Special purpose maps can be used to learn about these human characteristics.

Reviewing What We Have Learned

Examples of Human Characteristics include:

cities, buildings, bridges and roads

Natural (physical) characteristics and human characteristics are often connected.

In other words, people often interact with natural (physical) characteristics by creating human characteristics.

People build docks on islands because they use boats to get to islands.

People build bridges over rivers so they can cross the river.

People build sawmills near forests so they can make use of the trees.

What human characteristic do you think people had to build because Michigan had two separate peninsulas?

◦ Mackinac Bridge had to be constructed.

How do you think people got from the Lower Peninsula to the Upper Peninsula before the bridge was built?

(Write your answer on a sheet of paper to share later).

This book describes the building of the Mackinac Bridge from the viewpoint of three different characters, a father and his two sons.

Point of view - authors often include characters with different points of view in a story.

While listening to the story, pay attention for details about the characters and their points of view regarding the construction of the bridge as well as the impact of the bridge itself.

The Ambassador Bridge at Detroit The Bluewater Bridge at Port Huron The International Bridge at Sault Ste.

Marie.

Bridges

People sometimes build tunnels under bodies of water.

In Detroit there is a tunnel connecting the city of Detroit and the city of Windsor in Canada.

Bridges and tunnels require highways

Write one thing you can conclude about

the highways of Michigan based on

the map.

Most highways go either north/south or east/west.

A lot of highways go to the Detroit area.

There are fewer highways in the Upper Peninsula.

In the Lower Peninsula highways go almost all the way round the coastlines.

cities

St. Ignace and Mackinaw City, the two cities on either side of the Mackinac Bridge

Detroit, the largest city in Michigan

Marquette, the largest city in the Upper Peninsula

Lansing, the state capital

Grand Rapids, another large city

Sault Ste. Marie, an important city in the Upper Peninsula

Ludington, a city where you can take a ferry across Lake Michigan to the state of Wisconsin

St. Ignace and Mackinaw City, the two cities on either side of the Mackinac Bridge

Detroit, the largest city in Michigan

Marquette, the largest city in the Upper Peninsula

Lansing, the state capital

Grand Rapids, another large city

Sault Ste. Marie, an important city in the Upper Peninsula

Ludington, a city where you can take a ferry across Lake Michigan to the state of Wisconsin

Reading a Highway Map – Answer Sheet

If you were traveling from Detroit to Mackinaw City what highway would you probably take? 75

If you were traveling from Lansing to Flint what highway would you probably take? 69

What highway goes around Michigan’s Thumb? 25

What highway goes from St. Ignace all the way to Ironwood? 2

What highway goes from Detroit through Ann Arbor and all the way to Benton Harbor? 94

Plan a trip! –Sample RouteChoose a city in the Lower Peninsula to start with and write it here: Lansing

Choose a city in the Upper Peninsula to travel to and write it here: Munising

List the highways you would have to travel to get to the city in the Upper Peninsula: 27 to 75 to 28

A tall building like a tower that has a light in the top to guide ships

  Example: Lighthouses are found along the

shores of the Great Lakes and on islands in the Great Lakes.

Because of the Great Lakes people in Michigan have had to build a very special kind of human characteristic

A lighthouse

Lighthouses are some of Michigan’s most unique human characteristics

•Good photographs can be found at the following website: <http://www.terrypepper.com/lights/state_michigan.htm>.

In some places there are a lot of lighthouses clustered together.

Near the Mackinac Bridge there are a lot of lighthouses.

Lighthouses are sometimes on islands.

Lighthouses are often at the end of points, or peninsulas.

Lighthouses are often at the end of a bay.

Create a poster describing in words and in illustrations the significant natural (physical) and human characteristics of Michigan.

Your poster include at least two natural and two human characteristics.

Your should be in color, neat, organized, and pleasing to the eye.