Instruction in cartographic or map literacy in technical communication courses can support pedagogies promoting social change. Students must develop an ability to read, understand, interpret, use, and critique maps in technical communication contexts. This article argues that attention to cartographic literacy can build on existing visual…

Students in the early republic commonly stitched, drew, and painted maps of their states, nation, and world as part of their educations. Map drawing and geography were regarded as particularly appropriate subjects for girls, both as a pathway to literacy and as a means of demonstrating accomplishment. Many young girls exposed to map work in their…

National Geography Standard 1 requires that students learn:"How to use maps and other geographic representations, geospatial technologies, and spatial thinking to understand and communicate information" (Heffron and Downs 2012). These concepts have real-world applicability. For example, elevation contour maps are common in many…

Ever want to take a quick, deep-dive into a map found in students' textbooks? Ever want to use a web-based map to bring that static, print map to life? Maybe the map would be better with interactive or near real-time data. This article discusses the new Earth Science GeoInquiries! Earth Science GeoInquiries from Esri are instructional resources…

English 302: Writing about the Arts is a practicum course offered at the University of Windsor for upper-level English undergraduate students. The course asks students to write about a variety of art forms and requires engagement with multiple genres of writing as a way for students to effectively order their experiences, reconstruct meaning in…

Beyond acknowledging for spatial--more specifically map--literacy to the intellectual development of lifelong learners, teachers need to know how they might teach these tools. This article describes a collaboration to help teachers integrate spatial literacy in the school. The author suggests excellent web resources that supported an integrated…

Children's cognitive skills change substantially from the time they enter school at about the age of five to when they graduate from high school a dozen years later. Some changes can be attributed to the school curriculum, but others are part of children's developmental evolution as they mature and interact with the world. Rather than reviewing…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the need to educate and encourage students to seek an ethical realm in which the researcher not only accurately analyses and documents a problem, but also actually advocates involvement to mitigate negative impacts. Design/methodology/approach: Geographic information systems (GIS) applications are…

This booklet is both an executive summary of "Geography for Life: National Geography Standards 1994" and an introduction to geography as an essential part of every child's education, and as an integral part of the lives of all U.S. citizens. The publication is illustrated on every page with photographs, paintings, graphs, and maps. It…

Describes an approach to eliminating "map illiteracy" in college students. Map illiteracy is defined as the inability to read and draw meaning from simple maps used in history texts and teaching. (JDH)

In summary, this highly conceptual activity helps middle school students understand that the lines on the contour map represent intersections of the surface of the landform with regularly spaced horizontal planes. Building the landform and relating its features to the contour map offer many opportunities for visualization, all grounded in concrete…

A way for teachers to counter duality in traditional patterns of thinking, especially in social studies classrooms, is to plan a lesson involving conflicting sources. In this article, the author discusses a mapping lesson for high school and college students, which helps students understand dualities. From this lesson, the student recognizes the…

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)

Addresses the importance of maps for instruction in both history and geography. Suggests that maps have gotten recent attention because of the rapid political changes occurring in Europe and the quincentenary of Columbus' voyage. Discusses different map projections and the importance of media and satellite display of real pictures of the world.…

Describes a college level geography project which focused on land use identification from aerial photographs, land use mapping, and the identification and analysis of land use changes in the field. The project was intended to help students apply geographic skills to real world problems. (AM)