Charging undergraduate geography students with the task of designing a recreational trail in their local community offers an engaging experiential opportunity with potential to advance geographic learning in a real-world setting. This article presents an assignment in which students were asked to develop a recreational trail proposal for an…

Among college undergraduates, males consistently outperform females on tests of geographical knowledge. That difference may be caused by the fact that women have had less active control over distances and directions traveled in their lives, and thus less interest in learning about them. This may change as women's roles in society change. (PS)

A geography skills test was administered to over 3,000 Indiana college students enrolled in introductory geography courses in 1987. The National Council for Geographic Education Competency-Based Geography Test, Secondary Level, Form D, was used to measure geographic ability in the area of map skills, place name location, physical geography, and…

The concept of shape often enters introductory cultural geography textbooks through the subject of political geography. This paper focuses on a quantitative way to introduce the concept of shape to students of cultural geography. The measure used in this approach was to compare the perimeter of the sovereign state with the perimeter of a circle…

Social Studies textbooks from grades 1-4 published by Macmillan (1985), Scott Foresman (1986), and Silver Burdett & Ginn (1988) were selected for review to assess the position given by these books to geographic place vocabulary. Each was evaluated on the basis of frequency and continuity of places named, the attention to stressing place name…

Recounts research regarding elementary education majors' familiarity with world geography. Reports poor performance among 253 students on a geography test designed for use at the high school level. Indicates that the education majors performed best on map reading activities and worst on identification of land forms. Calls for further research. (SG)

Many students in the United States do not possess a sound geographic vocabulary. This study compared two instructional methods, drill and varied activities, that might be used to develop that vocabulary. Eighth-grade social studies classes at three sites (one urban, one rural, and one transitional) were used to assess learning of the 50 United…