The purpose of this study is to analyze the potential of Story Maps to improve the awareness of geography among preservice geography teachers (PGTs). To conduct the research, this study planned a Story Maps-based full-semester lesson plan for 30 beginning PGTs. The data were collected via participants' reflective journals and were analyzed using…

How children piece together their ideas about other nations, peoples and cultures is an important but under-researched area of geography education. This article reviews findings conducted in Western industrialised countries relating to primary school children's global awareness and the factors which influence their understanding. Differences…

It has long been understood that widespread place name ignorance exists among the youth of today. The present study compares place location knowledge among students in a Swedish town in 2013 with the knowledge in the same town 45 years earlier. The study used outline maps to determine the ability to locate geographic names. A total of 1,124…

Advances in the Google Earth virtual globe and the concomitant Keyhole Markup Language (KML) are providing educators with a convenient platform to cultivate and assess one's place location knowledge (PLK). This article presents a general framework and associated implementation methods for the online testing of PLK using Google Earth. The proposed…

This paper reports on 30 years of data collected concerning the level of knowledge about Africa University of Minnesota junior- and senior-level students had. The data show the dominance of the Middle East in Western media and the level of confusion and lack of knowledge shown by most students. Concludes with recommendations concerning geography…

Reports results of a two-year survey of the place-location knowledge of 879 college students beginning introductory classes in World Regional Geography and Cultural Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Results showed, among other things, that attending to news media had a positive impact on ability to locate the countries while…

Discusses how educating children to use maps for navigation may enhance wayfinding skills as well as general representation and spatial skills. Documents need for innovative educational curricula to meet challenges of teaching map navigation. Describes development and evaluation of "Where Are We?" curriculum to simulate real-world…

Examined how varying levels of geographic expertise facilitated reasoning with maps as representations of the earth's surface. Found that geography experts performed significantly better than novices and preservice teachers, and experts' performance was differentiated by the reasoning in which they engaged. Explored implications for understanding…

Presents the results of an experiment that asked 53 middle school children to identify continent shapes and to arrange them to form a map of the world. Australia, Europe, and Asia were the most recognized. Misidentified and misaligned most consistently were Africa and Antarctica. Discusses possible reasons and teachers' responses. (MJP)

These activities are part of a series of 17 teacher-developed instructional activities for geography at the secondary-grade level described in SO 009 140. In the activities students develop map skills by learning about and using nautical charts. The first activity involves students in using parallel rulers and a compass rose to find their…

The process of constructing a test to assess geographic knowledge and understandings of fifth and sixth grade pupils is discussed. In addition, a draft of a test to measure geography skills and knowledge of physical and human geography is presented. The document is presented in three sections. In section I, information is presented on test…

This activity is one of a series of 17 teacher-developed instructional activities for geography at the secondary-grade level described in SO 009 140. The activity investigates the development of compass skills, map skills, and orienteering. It employs the educational-games approach. Given specific exercises and instructions, students become…