"Location and Transformation" skills are critical tools for navigating the world and establishing foundational steps for geometric reasoning associated with co-ordinate grids and the Cartesian plane. The contextual nature of using local landmarks to understand students' mental representation of large-scale space has the potential to…

History learning is many times considered dull and demotivating by young students. Probably this is due because the learning process is disconnected from these students' reality and experience. One possible way to overcome this state of matters is to use technology like mobile devices with georeferencing software and local history and heritage…

This paper discusses four key concepts to help preschool and primary grade children develop the ability to read and understand maps. Examples of student activities to develop each of the concepts are provided. The essential concepts are representation, symbolization, perspective, and scale. Representation is vital. Children must perceive that a…

Value-by-area maps, or cartograms, provide a curiosity-provoking method of depicting geographically related data. The use of cartograms for learning such data involves a learner's familiarity with the region depicted and the distortion of true, earth-centered scale. To examine the effects of region familiarity and region distortion on learning…

Reported are research findings that (1) illustrate the importance of primary spatial orientation for children's and adults' use of symbolic spatial skills and (2) indicate the importance of the distinction between primary and secondary spatial orientation. At least two major ways exist in which humans gather and use spatial information. The…

A proposed distance education course on map use which is designed primarily for American inservice social studies teachers is described in this paper, which begins with a brief overview of the use of distance education for teaching map use skills. A low-budget distance education course that has been taught in Brazil--i.e., Fundamentals for…

A geographer and a developmental psychologist collaborated on an investigation of the development of children's ability to comprehend, produce, and use graphic representations of space. Such representations are called "geo-graphics" in this paper. The researchers held that children's mastery of maps is dependent on their developing…

Piagetian stages of cognitive development are reviewed, and what teachers of geography skills, particularly map skills, can do to make use of Piaget's theory of child development is discussed. Piaget describes children at four different stages: (1) sensorimotor stage--birth to 2 years, (2) preoperational stage--ages 2-7, (3) concrete operational…

In an investigation of the development of mapping as distinct from drawing, 39 middle and lower class Cambridge, Massachusetts children in kindergarten and first- and second-grades were shown a small three-dimensional model town, asked to make a smaller, three-dimensional copy of the model, and then asked to make a map showing each item in the…

There is little agreement about how the ability to read route maps initially emerges and about how it should be stimulated by early childhood educators. This study assessed the route map reading behavior of young children and the basic skills that might contribute to that behavior. In individual videotaped sessions, 120 four, five, and six year…

Although it has been suggested that women are less likely than men to use cardinality in dealing with environmental space, there has been no direct empirical assessment of this claim. If women are less likely than men to use cardinality, it is not clear whether women lack the competence to use a coordinate system of reference or simply prefer…

This paper discusses the value of teaching map and compass skills in the classroom or an outdoor situation. Navigation is the most basic of all outdoor skills. A map and compass curriculum can be taught to anyone, is inexpensive, and is easily incorporated in a variety of educational situations. General teaching principles are outlined: (1) start…

The effects of peer interaction as it relates to equilibration in the development of map drawing activity was studied in 72 fifth graders. The children were pretested and placed into 36 same sex pairs for training on the basis of Piaget and Inhelder's six-stage sequence of map drawing ability. A discrepancy (above, below or at the same stage)…

Geographic illiteracy is widespread in Indiana. In seeking a solution, it is necessary first to isolate the problem. It seems that the problem has come about in spite of rather than because of state curriculum guidelines. Geography has a strong role in the social studies curriculum of Indiana at every grade level from first through seventh. The…

The project described in this paper was developed by the Census Bureau to train census enumerators. The approach called "geographic gameboard," consists of three components: (1) an imaginary, graphically depicted community (Abbotsville, Oklahoma); (2) a census map that corresponds to the census geography of Abbotsville; and (3) blank…