Between 1870 and 1920, the United States government produced a series of Statistical Atlases, representing the country's first attempts to provide a fully national perspective on its rapidly evolving physical and human geographies. Compiled once every 10 years using data from the U.S. Census and other sources, the Statistical Atlases offer views…

The social studies curriculum travels through time and space and is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. To an outsider, the social studies curriculum is a single line on a program of studies, 45 minutes of a student's school day. Those on the inside, however, know that the field covers history, geography, civics, economics, and much…

This guided inquiry combines a structured approach to collecting and organizing data with substantial student autonomy in the important cognitive tasks of analyzing and drawing conclusions from the data. While the teacher decides on the compelling question, students are responsible for generating supporting questions. The detailed emphasis on…

Classroom projects that explore culture and globalization enhance the curriculum and help students see how geography directly connects to their lives. These authors contend that a project-based approach can supplement the teaching of an AP Human Geography course, and visualize this course as an essential tool for students to truly understand how…

As a geography educator, it is hard to miss geography's bad rap. There is no shortage of stories and quizzes that show just how bad Americans are at geography and, by implication, how bad geography teachers are. What the public means when they say Americans don't know geography is that people cannot pinpoint countries/states on a map, cannot name…

Weather phenomena across the United States have provided heightened attention to climate change in headlines such as "Heavy Rain and Floods: The 'New Normal' with Climate Change?" ("Christian Science Monitor," Aug. 14, 2014); "Delay Action on Climate Change by 10 Years and Costs Rocket 40%"…

Chinatowns are familiar emblems of "Chineseness" in many countries and are among the most visible and tangible spatial manifestations of Chinese migration. Large and well-established Chinatowns can be found in diverse locales, including New York, San Francisco, Vancouver, Paris, Sydney, and Singapore. Despite sharing numerous easily…

The author truly believes that the marginalization of social studies is not only harming the profession, it is jeopardizing the democracy. But if social studies is in jeopardy, consider the colleagues in the arts and music. Art and music programs have been reduced or eliminated in thousands of schools throughout the nation. Marginalizing art and…

Numerous educators have noted that Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a powerful tool for social studies teaching and learning. Yet the use of GIS has been hampered by issues such as the cost of the software and the management of large spatial data files. One trend that shows great promise for GIS in education is the move to cloud computing.…

Both "teaching" and "teaching" with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are "wicked problems," in the sense that they involve multiple variables that interact with one another. Effective teaching calls for both learning with understanding and transfer. The authors' own experience implementing a geography and…

As people head further into the 21st Century, they are living in a constantly changing and interdependent world. As such, students need a global awareness that includes familiarity with different cultures, beliefs, and lifestyles in order to understand and address global issues. Geography can help students understand these issues. In this article,…

In this article, the authors build upon the use of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) in U.S. history and in current demographic studies, using examples from co-author Herschel Sarnoff's classroom in the Watts section of Los Angeles. They discuss theoretical and conceptual approaches that support student learning with GIS and provide resources…

In the United States, people get very little news about Africa, and what news they do get is about war or famine, with little historical information or context. In this article, the authors describe how they developed and implemented a Pan-African Summit simulation project in order to give their approximately 100, 9th-grade students (in five World…

Third-grade children were able to interpret "Band 5" black-and-white Landsat images (those produced nearest the visible light portion of the spectrum) with little difficulty. (RM)

Describes a teaching activity which encourages junior high and high school students to analyze a city geographically and historically by using materials available from a Chamber of Commerce or Bureau of Tourism. (CK)