Even before it became a common place to assume that "the Eskimo have a hundred words for snow" the languages of hunting and gathering people have played an important role in debates about linguistic relativity concerning geographical ontologies. Evidence from languages of hunter-gatherers has been used in radical relativist challenges to…

"Mashup" is a new technology term used to describe a web application that combines data or technology from several different sources. You can apply this concept in your classroom by having students create their own mashup maps. Google Maps provides you with the simple tools, map databases, and online help you'll need to quickly master this…

This article first attempts to supply a definition of peoples' identity as scientific as possible and takes a close look at the conditions that make creativity possible. The study of science history clearly indicates that the periods of great creativity were those when communication was sufficient to make remote partners stimulate one another but…

Many models have hypothesized that multimedia comprehension requires the concurrent processing of verbal and visuospatial information by limited information processing systems. However, in spite of the emphasis devoted to the concurrent processing of verbal and visuospatial information, little research has so far investigated the specific role…

This study set out to better understand the changing links between geography and citizenship. Content analysis was conducted on eighteen high school world geography textbooks and state/national standards. Interviews were conducted with teachers and textbook authors. Five significant changes were noted: decline of national orientation and a greater…

Using a qualitative approach, this study investigated how the use of GIS technology affected fourth graders' geography learning and understanding of place. For this study, a GIS module was developed and implemented. The data gathering included transcripts from video and audio recordings of classroom instructions, interviews with the students and…

Virtual communities of practice (VCoP) have been advocated for some time as a promising means of taking professional development to teachers in widely distributed locations. However, geography, and indeed education literature as a whole, contains very few examples where this has been achieved. This paper reports on two VCoP professional…

Cultural activities such as teaching and learning are highly complex systems that are deeply embedded in a wider culture and these factors impede change. Despite feeling directly the effect of the recent drive towards mass participation in higher education, most lecturers have not accounted for these changes in their teaching methods. Unless…

Bridging disciplines have much to teach regarding how to combine analytical tools to tackle problems and questions that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries. This article explores interdisciplinary aspects of two long established bridging disciplines--geography and anthropology--in order to consider what the relatively young undertaking…

Maps and mapping activities are essential in the primary grades. Maps are truly ubiquitous today, as evidenced by the popularity of websites such as Google Earth and Mapquest, and by devices such as Global Positioning System (GPS) units in cars, planes, and boats. Maps can give visual settings to travel stories and historical narratives and can…

This essay reports on a university-school oral history project at an elementary school in Brooklyn, New York. It theorizes the dialectic of place and history as expressed in the voices of the school community and goes on to suggest some tenets for a public sphere pedagogy rooted in material rhetoric and economic geography. (Contains 14 notes.)

This review of research on perception of the environment is part of a series designed to supplement undergraduate geography courses. In the past decade there has been a remarkable increase in research related to man-environment interaction. Much of this research has centered on how the individual perceives the environment and is characterized by a…

Today's students in the Western world show a widespread lack of basic world knowledge. Geography graduates in a Canadian and an Australian university were asked to locate 75 major cities in the world. The results indicated a wide knowledge of cities in the Western world but little knowledge of cities in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Only…

Included in this booklet are content information, teaching techniques, and ways to study about the home community for geography teachers. The author suggests that the home community should be the base of operations in geographic learning at all geographic levels. The home community, the place where people have common interests, is discussed as a…

Historical, psychological, geographical, and economic aspects of the relationship between Canada and the United States are discussed. Suggestions are presented to help American geographers planning to attend the upcoming National Council for Geographic Education conference in Toronto, Canada, enhance their understanding of Canada. (RM)