Q: Where
else can I find instructional resources for teaching geography?
A: In addition to the AAG, the National
Council for Geographic Education (www.ncge.org) is a professional
organization for geography educators. The NCGE offers members two professional
journals (The Geography Teacher and The Journal of Geography), special
publications, and hosts the National Conference on Geography Education
annually.
National Geographic
Society's Education and Children's Programs hosts Xpeditions,
a collection of resources for geography instruction.
Project
GeoSTART, an AAG model curriculum project, contains lessons on hurricanes
that are designed to have students engaged in one or more modes of spatial
thinking. These units are designed to complement the more widely used
meterorologic or historical-narrative treatments of hurricanes in the
United States.
Q: What is
"spatial thinking?"
A: "Spatial thinking is the kind of thinking that involves
parts of the brain that deal with locations, conditions at places, connections
between places, and ways of organizing that kind of information."
Q: Why does
how I teach geography concepts make a difference?
A: Because, according to a rapidly growing body of research,
learning activities that are designed to engage multiple parts of the
brain tend to result in more durable learning (partly because memories
appear to form as distributed networks of neurons rather than specific
individual brain areas). It's not the whole story, by far, but it is an
important part of the story.
Q: What methods
promote or increase my students' capacity for spatial thinking skills?
A: We should start by acknowledging that the human brain "does"
spatial thinking in a number of different places, which appear to be structured
to do particular kinds of spatial thinking. It is plausible, therefore,
that there may be significant individual differences among students in
their ability and inclination to perceive and organize spatial information
in specific ways. For this reason, my answer to this question starts by
admitting that the same methods might not work equally well for all students.
After someone admits that possibility, I would recommend reading Chapter
6 in Teaching Geography, because the whole chapter is about methods to
promote spatial thinking.
Q: Are there
particular topics or approaches that are especially suited to particular
grade levels?
A: Yes, which is why Chapter 6 in Teaching Geography makes so
many grade-specific suggestions. See also the Scaffold of spatial-thinking
ideas on the accompanying CD and in the NASA-funded Project
GeoSTART materials.
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