Geography Lesson 1: Where is Brazil? An Identification of the human and physical features

Introduction

If you have an atlas at home, or by using Google Earth, find out where Brazil is.

Main Activity

In this activity you will find out extra information about the locational, physical and human features within Brazil and South America.

You will need :

Brazil-Lesson-1-Blank-Map-of-South-America-Download
Brazil-Lesson-1-Blank-Map-of-BrazilDownload

It would be really useful if you could have these printed out. Otherwise, you could copy into a program such as PowerPoint or an art program that you can draw over the top of the images. Otherwise, you can try and copy these out by hand (but that is pretty tricky).

Then complete these activities.

  1. The cities of Brazil
    Can you locate the cities and oceans?
     The capital city of Brazil is Brasilia with a population of approximately 2.5million
     Using an atlas, can you mark on the following cities on your map of Brazil? Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Salvador and Manaus.
     Can you find out the name of the ocean bordering Brazil’s coastline?
     Lots of cities in Brazil are located by the coast, what do you think is the reason for this?

2. The rivers and mountains of Brazil
 The longest river in South America is located in Brazil. This is called the Amazon River. The Amazon River is 6516km in length.
 Brazil has impressive mountain ranges. The Serra do Espinhaço mountain range covers the largest area. The Tumucumaque, Imeri and Pacaraima mountain ranges have the highest peaks.
 Using an atlas and interactive maps (Digimap/Google Earth), draw the Amazon River and mountains onto your blank map of South America and add a key explaining its key features.

3.The location of Brazil
How good are your map skills?
 Brazil is located in South America.
 It is bordered by 10 countries.
 Using an atlas can you try to locate the 10 countries that border Brazil and write them on your map of South America?
 The Equator crosses through Brazil; can you identify this on a map or in an atlas?

4. Human and Physical Features
Read these definitions and make sure you understand them:

5. The geographical regions of Brazil

You will need this information for this section:

Brazil-Lesson-1-Geographical-Regions-InformationDownload

 There are six major ecosystems in Brazil known as: Tropical rainforest (Amazonia), The Cerrado, The Pantanal, The Pampas, The Caatinga, The Mata Atlantica.
 Using the map and information, locate the different ecosystems found in Brazil.