The objective of this research was to determine if and to what extent students' learning of geographic concepts can be improved through incorporation of hands-on play with Play-Doh® and LEGO® and geospatial technologies, specifically drones. The project team conducted six months of biweekly, collaborative instruction at Comstock Middle School in…

Using current and historical data, the U.S. Census Bureau offers geography teachers activities with resources to use in the classroom. The activities are aligned to the National Geography Standards (2012) and provide real-world data examples while teaching concepts such as environmental changes and population changes. In a geography activity for…

This article introduces the fifty states project, a year-long study of the United States that uses crowd sourcing to bring authentic materials into the social studies classroom. The project started five years ago, when author Kelly McPherson decided that she wanted to have a care package sent from all 50 states to help students learn about the…

Long gone are the days when the study of the internal combustion engine was the core of the transportation curriculum offered in most middle schools and high schools. To be competitive and successful, today's students need a more global understanding of transportation, distribution, and logistics systems. In response to this shift to include…

This article reports the results of a case study that employed user-centered design to develop training tutorials for helping middle school social studies teachers use Web-based GIS in their classrooms. This study placed teachers in the center of the design process in planning, designing, and developing the tutorials. This article describes how…

Aerial imagery has a great capacity to engage and maintain student interest while providing a contextual setting to strengthen their ability to reason proportionally. Free, on-demand, high-resolution, large-scale aerial photography provides both a bird's eye view of the world and a new perspective on one's own community. This article presents an…