Although Web-based instruction provides learners with sufficient resources for self-paced learning, previous studies have confirmed that browsing navigation-oriented Web sites possibly hampers users' comprehension of information. Web sites designed as "categories of materials" for navigation demand more cognitive effort from users to orient their…

Geographers and other social scientists have argued that cartoons can play an effective role in enhancing the classroom experience and foster the development of critical thinking skills. We confirm the case for the use of cartoons in the classroom while arguing that recent writing underestimates the potential of this medium as a teaching resource.…

Location knowledge is typically assessed using outline maps. A new set of questions reflect spatial thinking research and helps to assess student location knowledge. A small group (145) of first-year college students helped to refine the items. Question styles include: open-response, multiple-choice, listing, labeling, and sketching. Topics…

Place-based education is a growing trend in education. This article defines place-based education and briefly examines its use across the disciplines. So as to better understand the wider concept, meanings of the geographical term "place" are analyzed. Place-based education in a social studies classroom is examined using two hypothetical…

Field trips have long been a part of school activities, learning, and curriculum. The application of interpretive techniques or the interpretive approach can further enhance learning and retention in outside the classroom opportunities. This is especially true when exploring geographic or geologic concepts. This article explores the concept of…

Through an instructional approach, this article offers a template for a classroom-based geography capstone course grounded in pedagogical elements of synthesis and reflection, as based on exploration of ten key geographic ideas. It provides insights into course goals, structure, and components for instructors who may wish to implement it in…

Globally there is a growing environmental awareness among all segments of society, but research on the effect of environmental education in shaping the attitude of military students is lacking. Tertiary environmental education to officers of the South African Department of Defence is seated in the Department of Military Geography at the South…

Consistent with developments in American education pedagogy, geography educators have made great strides exploring a wide range of high- and low-tech methods for teaching and learning geographic concepts. This article draws on a qualitative analysis of essays in which college students discuss tenets of the National Geography Standards in the…

Geographers have been active in numerous focused study-abroad programs, but few have created or led language-based programs overseas. This article describes the development of a Spanish language program in Ecuador and how it was made geographic primarily through a theoretically informed regional geography course. The approach employs theoretical…

This article discusses attempts to revive gender in the context of the geography curriculum at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. The reluctance of Dutch geography/-ers to embrace gender geography is related to the way in which the discipline has been understood and practised in the past and by whom as well as to the neglect of gender…

This study, based on Taiwanese geographical concepts, develops a multi-touch interactive jigsaw puzzle (MIJP) to assist primary school students in solving geographical puzzles. The MIJP, which has multi-touch operating characteristics and provides two kinds of scaffolding tools, each with a different level of difficulty, can assist students in…

This dissertation constitutes a multi-scale quantitative and qualitative investigation of patterns of urban development in metropolitan regions of the United States. This work has generated a comprehensive data set on spatial patterns of metropolitan development in the U.S. and an approach to the study of such patterns that can be used to further…

The article explores the ways in which young people use their everyday environments and how they give meanings to their surroundings. It concentrates on the potential of the re-interpretations of 1970s time-geography by applying the method of time-space paths to educational contexts in both universities and schools. The point of view is…

Participatory action research (PAR) carries the promise that academics can make a difference, an appealing prospect for many postgraduate students. This paper is written by an early career researcher who "survived" a PAR PhD. Despite acknowledging the unique challenges faced by students attempting PAR, it argues that these have been…

This article reviews recent theory and research on geographic disparities in mental health and their implications for social work. It focuses on work emerging from the fields of mental health geography, psychiatric epidemiology, and social work, arguing that a wide range of spatial disparities in mental health are important to understand but that…