Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times

Lisa McCray, a former teacher, tells fourth-graders about mapping and identifying geographic regions of Virginia at Belle Heth Elementary School in Radford. Representatives from Anderson & Associates, a Blacksburg-based engineering firm, visited the school Wednesday with hands-on mapping tools.

RADFORD -- Grab a pen for a pop quiz.

Which crops or natural resources are richest where you live? And where exactly are you anyway?

A retired Salem teacher has created a lesson plan on mapping designed to answer those questions and keep students fresh on our "Valley and Ridge" region and the four other parts in the state -- Appalachian Plateau, Blue Ridge, Piedmont and Tidewater -- all while introducing them to map technologies. On Wednesday, a group of Radford students tried it out.

Lisa McCray, a 35-year teaching veteran, partnered with Blacksburg-based engineering firm Anderson & Associates to bring her lesson on geographic regions to fourth-grade students at Belle Heth Elementary School during the geography industry's international GIS Day.

Geographic Information Systems are computer-based mapping tools that help store, analyze and present data. The National Geographic Society created GIS Day as a way to demonstrate "real-world" applications of the technology.

Students at Belle Heth got a 20-minute taste of at least one of those applications: analyzing where they are.

"We chose to teach them about the regions of the state to help them study for their SOLs," said Catherine Van Noy, vice president of business development with Anderson & Associates. Students take the statewide standardized exams in April.

Students in fourth grade learn about the regions of the state, their industries and how they affect the economy.

In September, students in Sherrie Cullaty's class created booklets outlining the state from coal-producing areas to water-based industries.

With McCray's lesson, students placed old-school technology of transparencies over a base map to mark the state's regions and were asked to identify each one and what products are produced there.

Nine-year-old Oscar Corona, who said he loves learning about history and places, had no trouble drawing a fish in Tidewater and corn in the Piedmont section.

When he reached closer to home, he was a little more uncertain.

After consulting with his teacher, Oscar decided to go with a chicken. After all, poultry is raised here, he said.

Cullaty said the GIS Day lesson, the first in her tenure at the school, would be a great refresher for students, and she might even use it in years to come.

"Anything that helps us learn something new in different ways is good," she said.