Teaching Geography and Map Skills
"Five Themes of Geography"
"Geography is a way of thinking, of asking questions, of observing, and of appreciating the world around us."
Missouri Social Studies
Released Social Studies MAP Test
See pp. 3-6
Major Ideas
Geography involves investigating relationships across space of people, places and environments. Geographers seek to understand why things are located where they are and how patterns are related to each other.
Geography is composed of three interrelated components: subject matter, skills and perspectives. The subject matter views the earth as the home of human beings. Skills involve techniques required to explore the subject matter and they include the techniques for asking questions and organizing information. Perspectives involve those related to ecological issues and spatial issues.
Geography Education Presents the Five Themes and Suggested Activities for Each Theme [National Geographic Society]
Five Themes and twenty-five activities
- Five Themes and Questions to Guide Students
- Geography Thinking and Organizing Skills
- Map Adventures-- What Do Maps Show -- Activities for three different grade levels
- Help Your Child Learn Geography
- Elementary Five Themes Projects
- Application of Five Themes to a City
- St. Joseph & Geography
- Lesson Plans [7th grade but can be modified for lower grades]
- "Latitude or Seattle" you will find this article in an issue of THE SOCIAL STUDIES from about 1973, 74, 75 or something like that.
- Helping Your Child Learn Geography Five Themes of Geography Exceptional suggestions and ideas that can be used to teach each of the Five Themes.
Children are playing in the sand. They make roads for cars. One builds a castle where a doll can live. Another scoops out a hole, uses the dirt to make a hill, and pours some water in the hole to make a lake. Sticks become bridges and trees. The children name the streets and may even use a watering can to make rain.
Although they don't know it, these children are learning the principles of geography. They are seeing how people interact with the Earth, manipulating the environment, learning how climate changes the character of a place, and looking at how places relate to each other through the movement of things from one place to another.
- Map/Geography WebQuests
- Map Adventure Grades 2-4
- North, South, East, West: Native Americans in the Natural World Grades 1-3
- A Voyage to Japan
- Geography Content
- Map Reading and Globe Skills
MAP AND GLOBE SKILLS
Map and globe skills are almost exclusively the responsibility to the social studies curriculum. As such, they are an important part of every unit. These skills are important because maps are frequently the only way to represent certain types of information. Therefore, students need how to understand the information provided on a wide variety of maps such as those in books, on television and in newspapers. Map and globe skills are different from map making skills (cartography) in that they involve "reading" information on existing maps and globes. Thus, reading and making maps are separate skills.
When planning map and globe skill activities, keep the following in mind:
1. These skills should be taught directly until students have a rudimentary understanding of the skills; that is, teachers should teach sample lessons showing students how to use the skill before assigning the skill in an activity. As students get more proficient, the teacher may assign skill work.
2. When introducing new skills, try to introduce the skill using a local example such as the neighborhood or state.
3. Map and globe skills should not be viewed as ends in themselves but as tools to use in gaining information about specific topics. For example, scale or distance is taught so that students can appreciate the relationship between different places on a map or the size of two different areas.
4. Map skills should be taught in every unit, taking advantage of the wide variety of map resources and the types of information that may be extracted from maps.
5. Skills should be taught in a developmental sequence; that is, easier skills first. e.g. Cardinal directions before intermediate directions; latitude before longitude; description before interpretation.
6.Map and globe skills should be part of most regular assessments.
7. Teachers should make frequent use of an historical atlas and Goodes World Atlas.
8. Teachers should give diagnostic map and globe skills assessments throughout the course so that weaknesses can be corrected while students with greater competencies may be provided with new skills.
9. As a general rule, a class will contain students with widely varying skill levels so that teachers must provide for differentiation within lessons. For example, use different levels of questions, different instructional resources such as texts and nonprint materials or different assignments.
10. Generally speaking, time devoted for map projections and other such specialized information should be reserved for those students who have mastered all other map and globe skills.
- Additional Geography/Map Resources
Federal
- NASA's Mission to Planet Earth
- http://www.earth.nasa.gov/
- National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution
- http://www.nmnh.si.edu
- National Park Service
- http://www.nps.gov
- National Weather Service
- http://www.nws.noaa.gov
- U.S. Department of Education
- http://www.ed.gov
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
- http://www.fws.gov
- U.S. Geological Survey Learning Web
- http://www.usgs.gov/education
Other
- About Geography
- http://geography.about.com
- Houghton Mifflin Social Studies Center
- http://www.eduplace.com/ss/index.html
- Kids Web-Geography
- http://www.infomall.org/kidsweb/geography.html
- Mapquest
- http://www.mapquest.com
- National Geographic Society
- http://www.nationalgeographic.com
- USA Today Weather Page
- http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wteach.htm