School curricula as well as scientific literature emphasize the need of understanding how children navigate with maps. To date, however, there is no empirically validated assessment tool for analyzing navigational map reading competencies that can be used in map-based navigation tasks in the real-world. This paper fills this gap by presenting…

This article reports on professional development in which twenty-four middle- or high-school teachers learned about integration of the Geographic Information System (GIS) in science or social science classes. We analyzed qualitative data obtained from the participants to examine two research questions. 1) What were the most relevant and useful…

The present study describes a teaching experiment aimed at the integrated development of competences at various study subjects. According to the curriculum, the students in Cartography at the Faculty of Geography (University of Bucharest) should learn how to make a hypsometric map by using the computer as early as the first semester of the 1st…

Software programs such as Tinkerplots ® or Geometer's Sketchpad ® can help students solve problems in mathematics classes, but may not be available to them after high school. In contrast, many students who become familiar with Internet tools and programs in office packages (word processing, spreadsheets, etc.) may use them daily to enhance their…

The aim of this study is to evaluate the applicability of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), used increasingly in primary and secondary education across the world, in social studies lessons in Turkey. In line with this aim, 14 social studies teachers working in the province of Aydin, Turkey received a 6-hour training course about GIS during the…

The National Council for Social studies defines Social sciences as the "integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence". At the elementary school level, social studies generally focuses on the local community and family. By middle and high school level, the social studies curriculum becomes more…

The challenge for today's elementary teachers is not "whether" but rather "how" to use computers to effectively teach students essential skills and concepts. One exciting way of meeting this challenge is to use Geographic Information Systems (GIS), computer software that captures, manipulates, analyzes, and displays data on specialized layered…