Maintains that the nature and role of geography within social studies has been a major area of debate since 1916. Asserts that geography relies too heavily on rote memorization of facts and neglects geographic thinking. Contends that geography teachers share the blame for this and must change their teaching and evaluation methods. (CFR)

Discusses the five fundamental themes of geography. Describes the relationship between them and traditional geographic concepts. Merges themes and concepts to include location (position on Earth's surface), place (physical and human characteristics), relationships within places (human and environment), movement (humans interacting with the earth),…

Presents lessons on geographic concepts concerning migration and population change. Suggests student analysis of census data. Focuses on the recent influx of Hispanic immigrants through concepts of assimilation, discrimination, and time decay. Observes that Hispanics, the oldest U.S. immigrant group, are presently viewed as the newest. Examines…

Describes the national geography standards, "Geography for Life," part of the Goals 2000 program. Asserts that the standards define the most important elements of geography content and instruction. Discusses innovative features of the standards and presents suggestions for using them. (CFR)

Discusses cooperative learning as a means of teaching geography. Urges production of a positive classroom climate by using group builders and cooperative projects. Suggests projects involving maps, community study, and bulletin boards. Argues that students in cooperative learning become more involved in the subject and more motivated to learn…

Presents results of a study determining the level of place name knowledge and map skills of middle school pupils. Explores place location, symbols, legend, scale, seasons, directions, time zones, latitude, and longitude. Reports higher scores for males, transient students, and previous students of geography. Concludes that increased instruction is…

Using South Africa as its focus, outlines a middle school lesson plan for teaching geographic themes and location and place. Provides students practice using geographic skills. Includes instruction about major cultural and ethnic groups living in South Africa along with three maps for classroom use. (NL)

Suggests that feature films produced in developing nations can serve as an aid to geographic instruction because they visually represent conditions of daily life. Uses two films, "Salaam Bombay" and "Sugar Cane Alley," to illustrate geographic understanding. Appendices include information on film distributors, background…

Maintains that misperceptions or incorrect mental images about relative location and size are common in geography. Reports on a study of 708 students ranging in age from junior high school through undergraduate school. Finds that misperceptions are widespread and exist across grade levels. (CFR)

Reports that students who might be bored or intimidated by economic geographic theory become enthusiastic when they can apply it to their own experiences. Describes a class project involving fieldwork and in-class analysis on delineating the retail trade area of a small Ohio city. Includes three maps and mathematical formulae for data analysis.…

Presents an interdisciplinary approach combining geography and children's literature to teach about Japanese culture. Describes classroom activities that link the Five Fundamental Themes of Geography to literature and art. Includes 11 figures, 9 summaries of children's books about Japan, and a 15-item annotated bibliography. (CFR)

Describes a teaching experience in which a unit on environmental issues was added to a college-level human geography course. Asserts that environmental topics are not well-integrated into most geography courses. Concludes that the students enjoyed the experience but suggested that the environmental topics be integrated throughout the entire course…

This geography textbook assessment is a tool and a guide for teachers and curriculum administrators who are responsible for adopting classroom geography materials. The assessment's goal is to help teachers identify the geography textbooks that are most compatible with the content goals of the geography education reform movement as stated in "The…

This document is a curriculum guide to a world geography course for grade 12 students in Manitoba, Canada. Following an overview of the course, the guide presents information about the six units that comprise the course. The units are: (1) World geography overview; (2) World population: characteristics, distribution, and growth; (3) World food…

Literature based reading can be used as a means of introducing and reinforcing geographic concepts. Every story has a setting. The setting is the time and place. Setting is representative of the five fundamental themes of geography. Teachers can integrate geographic skills in order to enhance the student understanding of the text. Geographic…