Using postcolonial feminist theory, the researcher attempts in this article to redefine the interpretive framework through which courses on Islam and North African women are being taught in American undergraduate classes. Several conceptual limitations have been identified: inadequate knowledge of the geography and history of North Africa; the…

This article examines whether questions embedded in geography textbooks address three components of spatial thinking: concepts of space, tools of representation, and processes of reasoning. A three-dimensional taxonomy of spatial thinking was developed and used to evaluate questions in four high school level geography textbooks. The results…

Immersive Virtual Reality (VR) has seen explosive growth over the last decade. Immersive VR attempts to give users the sensation of being fully immersed in a synthetic environment by providing them with 3D hardware, and allowing them to interact with objects in virtual worlds. The technology is extremely effective for learning and exploration, and…

This paper makes the claim that student teachers' learning depends a great deal on the individual school department where they are working, its social practices and the relationships of the teachers involved in initial teacher education (ITE). The paper considers how using a Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) lens to view data generated on…

Field trips have become less common due to issues including budget constraints and large class sizes. Research suggests that virtual field trips can substitute for field visits, but the role of webcams has not been evaluated. To investigate the potential for webcams to substitute for field trips, participants viewed urban and physical landscapes…

Google Earth photographs often show ships and their wakes in great detail. We discuss how the images can be used to calculate the velocity of these ships. (Contains 4 figures.)

Unlike the other papers in this symposium, which deal with countries where there are large numbers of universities, and comparison can be made over time and across space of geography's place in higher education, this paper focuses on a country that was for a long time described as a "one-university town": Singapore. What interesting…

Volunteered geographic information (VGI) refers to the geographic subset of online user-generated content. Through Geobrowsers and online mapping services, which use geovisualization and Web technologies to share and produce VGI, a global digital commons of geographic information has emerged. A notable example is Wikipedia, an online collaborative…

This research has been conducted to reveal the secondary school students' perceptions in relation with metaphors about the "geography" concept. A total of 110 students attending to secondary schools in Karabuk city center joined the research within the 2009-2010 academic year. Following questions were searched to answer: 1-Which…

Many theories either implicitly or explicitly assume that individuals readily move to places that improve their financial well-being. Other forces, however, offset these tendencies; for example, people often wish to remain close to family and friends. We introduce a methodology for determining how individuals weigh these countervailing forces, and…

Researchers in geography education have access to a wide range of research methods, spanning the quantitative-qualitative continuum. However, the choice of which methods to employ in one's research has a direct impact on the subsequent quality of the research findings and should therefore be carefully considered. This paper briefly explores the…

This article discusses what's cooking in America's schoolyard gardens. From First Lady Michelle Obama's world-famous Kitchen Garden, to Alice Waters' groundbreaking Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley, California, to a nationally recognized elementary school learning garden in the small Midwestern town of Ashland, Missouri, school children are planting…

This paper focuses on strategies for enhancing the preparation of geographers moving into academic careers. Based on research and experience gained from the Geography Faculty Development Alliance and Enhancing Departments and Graduate Education in geography projects, several suggestions for improved practice are detailed. These move beyond…

This research was designed to investigate innovative practices associated with child-friendly cities initiatives in the United Kingdom and Italy and how civics and citizenship initiatives are being applied into practical programmes of exploration and learning in geography and environmental education. The Child-Friendly Cities Initiative (CFCI) of…

Geographically related queries form nearly one-fifth of all queries submitted to the Excite search engine and the most frequently occurring terms are names of places. This paper focuses on digital libraries and extends the basic services of existing library management systems to include new ones that are dedicated to geographic information…