Argues that a scholarly discipline seems to progress best when it knows what it is and proceeds confidently in pursuing a generally accepted core of significant goals and questions. Identifies trends in geography which detract from or add to the progress of geography. Maintains that disciplinary accord is related to quality and amount of geography…

This article describes how medieval cartography and art showing landscape scenes communicate important geographical knowledge. Specific attention is devoted to "Haymaking," the 1565 painting of Pieter Brueghel. (JDH)

Presents a synopsis of the regional conference of the International Geographical Union held in August 1986 in Sitges, Spain. Identifies 10 international problems in geographical education and eight emerging instructional trends. Included is information on how to order copies of the papers presented at the conference. (JDH)

Provides practical advice on how to construct social surveys. Reviews ethical problems, sampling bias, problems of nonresponse, and the merits of self-completion versus interview surveys. A brief bibliography is attached. (JDH)

Argues the importance of teaching map reading skills to all students since they can help show how physical environment affects human actions. (FL)

By analyzing nineteenth-century mental health data, college level geography students discover the concept of distance decay, which describes the decrease in intensity of a phenomenon with increasing distance from some central place. (RM)

Argues that geography can be made more relevant in today's social studies if it is presented as the study of the environmental impact of culture. This theme is illustrated by contrasting cultural influences which shaped the physically similar east and southeastern regions of China and the U.S. (JDH)

Accounts from the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, published by the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia can be integrated with materials from related scientific sources to help college students develop an understanding of the emerging geography of recently discovered diseases. Legionnaires' disease is used as an example. (RM)

By studying early African hominids, students can learn about the interactive testing and creative aspects of scientific thinking and sharpen their geographical skills. It is impossible to study this topic without giving prominence to space and time. (RM)

Elizabeth Eiselen is interviewed concerning her career as a college geography teacher. She has also been an active member of the National Council for Geographic Education. Ms. Eiselen believes geography should answer the who, what, where, why, and so what of humans in relation to their environment. (CS)

The dependency concept, historical approach, contemporary problems and illustrations, and West Indians abroad are discussed to show how the Commonwealth Caribbean can serve as an effective area for a teaching approach that stresses an integrating, extraregional view of geography. (Author/ND)

Monthly maps of low pressure centers are presented here to attempt a concrete representation that may help students to understand the seasonal change from dry months to wet months along the mid-latitude west coast as a seasonal north-south migration of factors controlling rain and drought. (Author/JH)

An innovative, thematic approach to the teaching of African geography is offered in an attempt to modernize African regional geography, bring it in phase with the rest of the discipline, and emphasize the essential unity of the spatial viewpoint. Five themes are used as the framework for providing an integrating overview of the continent and its…

In this exercise students examine data on the racial distribution within the thirteen junior high schools of Fresno. Then upon discovering evidence of de facto segregation, students research, discuss, and present plans for desegregating the city junior high schools. (Author)