This guide is intended to assist California educators responsible for implementing the state's K-8 history-social science curriculum and provide practical ideas for bringing this curriculum into alignment with the History-Social Science Framework for California Public Schools, Kindergarten through Grade Twelve. The guide puts forth 10 principles…

The Fordham Foundation commissioned experts in each of the five core academic subjects (English, history, geography, mathematics, and science) to develop criteria for excellence and apply them to as many state standards as could be obtained. This summary report compiles the numerical scores and letter grades that each state earned in every…

The National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE) prepared this document to assist educators who wish to strengthen the geography component of pre-service teacher preparation. It includes NCGE standards for the role of geography in pre-service preparation. The paper's recommendations address geography as a pre-service preparation component for…

This document discusses the advantages of integrating social studies--geography in particular--and reading skills. Time is saved because literature based reading is a high interest means of introducing social studies concepts and vocabulary to children. Skills can be taught using the vocabulary from the social studies unit. This paper presents…

This activity book for teachers contains lessons designed to motivate students to master world geography. Questions on geographic concepts are formulated as mysteries for students to solve. The materials are written with seventh-grade students in mind, but could be adapted for use with other grade levels. Some of the lessons are more challenging…

This document presents 122 pages of illustrative maps, tables, and graphs that depict the following features of Europe: size, population, resources, commodities, trade, cities, energy, industries, demographic statistics, food and agriculture, aspects of the national governments, and aspects of the national economies. Numerous individual country…

A cross-disciplinary project at the University of South Alabama has been successful in improving the technical competence of undergraduate writers in all academic fields. For the geography department, this project has involved developing courses which teach writing as part of the thinking process and problem-solving method. While instructors have…

Suggested activities for integrating language concepts and comprehension skills into elementary school geography instruction are presented. The activities focus on concept formation through semantic mapping and making analogies, and on comprehension through recalling, generalizing, interpreting, and making inferences. Semantic maps indicate spoke…

In an attempt to determine the nature and extent of the changes which are occurring in physical geography textbooks at the introductory college level, a number of American texts published between 1960 and 1983 were subjected to a detailed analysis. Books were divided into an early group (publication dates: 1960-70) and late group (publication…

The 3-part inquiry described focused on geography departments in maintained secondary schools in England, Scotland, and Wales to study the process of decision-making in the curriculum context which needs to be done before using a television set in the classroom. In part one, four local education authorities were studied to determine and describe…

A warm and sunny subtropical climate helps make Hawaii an important sugar producer. History records that sugarcane was already present when Captain James Cook discovered the islands in 1778, and that the first successful sugarcane plantation was started in 1835 by Ladd and Company at Koloa. The first recorded export of Hawaiian sugar was in 1837,…

Intended for use with grades six through nine, "Global Geography" is a series of ten 15-minute video programs that help students think their way through important issues and increase their understanding of world geography. The programs fit easily into normal classroom schedules and support the content of most existing course sequences.…

In creating a continuous-integrated-sequential curriculum for grades 5-8, educators must raise and answer a series of questions to guide them in their decision-making. This paper raises and answers questions pertinent to the creation of a curriculum in cultural geography. Among the topics addressed are teaching methods, learning processes,…

More emphasis should be placed on the use of simple curriculum models for structuring instructional planning programs and for developing program planning skills during preservice or inservice education courses in order to continue to upgrade the contribution of geography to the secondary school curriculum. A five-stage model for planning geography…

In the face of widespread geographic ignorance, the article applauds the improved status of geography in the schools, describing it as the science best able to meet the challenge of ensuring that students' mental maps of the world are filled in with great and accurate detail. The field is defined through a multiple definition as both a physical…