This study investigates the capacity of children to develop map-based skills in spatial orientation in an urban environment unknown to them. In this quantitative study, a total of 328 pupils of grades 3-5 had to achieve specific skills with regard to map-based skills in spatial orientation (such as turning-off skills, transformation from map to…

The purpose of the present study is to develop a valid and reliable map literacy scale that is able to determine map literacy of individuals, especially that of high school and university students. The study sample was composed of 518 students studying at various faculties at Cumhuriyet University and high schools in Sivas and its counties. With…

Very few studies have been conducted on students' definitions of geography. The purpose of the present study was to add to the existing literature by exploring Omani students' definitions of geography. Participants were 477 students of grade 6 (ages 11-12) and grade 10 (ages 15-16) in one school district in Oman. They had been taught geography…

This study investigated the use of portfolio assessment technique in teaching map sketching and location in geography in Jos, Nigeria. It adopted a quasi-experimental design. Two schools were selected using a table of random numbers from a population of 51 schools in Jos South and assigned to each of experimental and control group. The…

After the March 2011 great East Japan earthquake, school teachers became much more interested in education for disaster prevention. The purpose of this paper is to indicate the extent education for disaster prevention is present in the Japanese National Curriculum. Before March 2011, some elements of disaster prevention education were added to the…

Two studies examined children's map construction skills when drawing demands were removed from the task and scenes were highly simplified. Study 1 compared the performance of first graders and third graders on their ability to preserve configuration during transformation of pictured arrays from eye-level to aerial views. For children with…

Teaching skills is one of the building blocks of Turkey's Social Studies Instructional Program. Via skills, information can be effectively transformed into high-level behaviors, that information may become a part of one's daily life, and that one may make right decisions concerning major issues in his/her life. Map skills are called "spatial…

The ability to recognize distortions of, for example, areas, angles, and landmass shapes in global-scale map projections, is an important part of critical map reading and use. This study investigates the cues used by individuals when they assess distortion on global-scale map projections. It was hypothesized that landmass shape would be a dominant…

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…

Leveraging the use of mobile devices for education, such as instructional games, is an area of increasing interest for targeted subpopulations of students including those who are deaf/hard-of-hearing (DHH). This paper outlines the perspectives of Deaf Education teachers and DHH children who participated in the GeePerS*Math project. Interviews and…

This study investigates the application of new educational technologies in geography classes. The research involved 126 students from vocational secondary schools in Serbia taking geography as a compulsory subject. We developed and applied a questionnaire for this research. The results indicate that out of several ICTs available, the majority of…

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…

Quest to Learn, an innovative school for grades 6 to 12 in New York City, grew out of the idea that gaming and game design offer a promising new paradigm for curriculum and learning. The designers of Quest to Learn developed an approach to learning that draws from what games do best: drop kids into inquiry-based, complex problem spaces that are…

This inquiry-based activity designed for the fifth through 12th grade allows students to engage in an outdoor, place-based experience, working collaboratively both in groups and as a class to accomplish the class goal of creating a local tree map linked to student-collected data about each tree. During Local Tree Mapping, students explore the…

This article relates about some results of an interdisciplinary research project analyzing influencing factors of children's spatial orientation competence in real space carried out by geography educators and psychologists. The focus is on the concept of representation as a theoretical foundation. The research design for collecting data of…