Describes a series of geography activities for upper elementary students designed to develop comprehension of space-time relationships. Students collect data about their families' commuting patterns and construct regional maps showing distances and directional relationships. Then they modify the maps to incorporate the time dimension. (AM)

Describes an activity for college geography classes in which students study demographic transitions and spatial patterns which provide a clear understanding of what modernization implies in Middle and South America. Students make maps, construct scattergrams, and analyze birth rates, gross national products, and infant mortality rates in 19…

Having students make an everyday atlas, a collection of maps, generally of a small area, that illustrates features of particular local interest, is a good way to introduce them to the methods and materials of geography. How to make an atlas is discussed. Two examples are described. (RM)

Orienteering--the game of following a map to find predetermined locations--can spark interest and develop skills in map making and map reading. This article gives background on orienteering; describes indoor and outdoor orienteering activities; offers suggestions for incorporating orienteering into science, math, and language arts; and provides a…

Presents a sixth-grade, interdisciplinary activity in which students investigate the physical size of the Roman Empire. (MKR)

Describes geography activities for elementary students. In the first activity, students learn how to understand coordinates and use them to read maps. In the second activity, students learn the concepts of the legend as well as how to use it to find their way around on a map. (PR)

Fourth- through sixth-grade students can create drawn-to- scale classroom maps as they prepare for a treasure hunt using mathematics, map, and measurement skills. The activity involves sharing different maps and examining their features; discussing scale and its purpose; describing the in-classroom treasure hunt; making the maps; and allowing…

Describes an activity by which college students can evaluate various urban environments through a series of responses to polar adjective pairs. This activity clarifies how earth science students feel about the environment, and it also teaches them contour mapping. (HM)

Describes a cartographic exercise to help students in an introductory geography course on the college level understand the geography of world affairs. The activity involved students in creating a diagrammatic map commensurate with amount of news magazine coverage of various foreign countries. (Author/DB)

Describes an exercise where a team of students constructs a scale map of objects located on their laboratory tabletop. Another group then tries to reorient the objects to fit the groups map. This leads to a discussion concerning the aspects of good and bad maps. (PR)

Using the U.S. Bureau of the Census's National Travel Survey as the primary data source, the exercises described will help high school or college level students develop basic geographic skills, including data interpretation, map construction, and spatial analysis. They will also familiarize students with broad patterns of recreation travel. (RM)

"True" maps of the world, as seen from the perspective of the time in which they were produced, remain an ethnocentric visual language in modern times. Students can gain insight into such "true" maps by studying maps produced in the great traditions of the West and East. Teachers can determine a map's appropriateness by…

These learning activities involve secondary geography students in making a turf map, using map grids, solving problems dealing with map scale, and making a map scale. Complete teacher instructions are provided. (RM)

A two-week map skills unit for fourth and fifth graders is presented. Students learn about the nature of maps, map conventions that cartographers employ to aid map readers in using maps, and map symbols and orientation. They then apply knowledge and skills learned and make their own maps. (RM)

This book focuses on the understanding and development of graphical representations of physical spaces. Contents are divided into six chapters: (1) "Appetizers" includes activities that can be done individually to become familiar with the topic of mapping; (2) "Concepts" provides a basis for mapping and graphical representation development; (3)…