Discusses the geographic information system (GIS), a database that permits the integration, management, and analysis of diverse geographical information. Reports that the GIS has brought gains in cartography and remote sensing but also has brought problems. Identifies the need to balance instruction in technical developments and mainstream…

Activities in which students build their own simulations of fossils, using seashells, chicken bones, toy dinosaurs, or leaves as models and plaster of paris, sand, mud, clay, or a mixture of gravel and clay as a matrix are presented. Curriculum extensions are included. (KR)

Presents a checklist for evaluating commercially available mapping software. Analyzes software features by general categories including range of map types, availability and flexibility of data files, and program evaluation. Discusses ease of operation, the manual, tutorial, screens and help, error handling, design flexibility, hard copy output,…

Provides a guide to writing research reports in geography and the environmental sciences. Outlines some of the reasons for writing research reports and then goes on to discuss general layout and content. Concludes with some comments on matters of presentation and written expression. (DSK)

Discusses the importance of harnessing children's natural tendency to make maps. Argues for a geographic curriculum based on building a relationship between the structure of the local landscape and the shape of children's lives. Lists mapping activities that can be used with various age groups. (CCM)

Notes the contribution of an earlier article to a geographic study of composition; extends that contribution by using concepts from postmodern geography to explore how spaces/places are socially produced through discourse and how these constructed spaces can then deny their connections to material reality or mask material conditions. Interprets…

Presents an annotated and categorized bibliography to foster an explicit concern with the geography of children. Includes articles on (de)constructing children, children in the environment, designing environments for children, environmental hazards, indirect experience of place, social issues, citizenship and agency, and children's geographical…

Explains how Geographic Information Systems (GIS) influences geography curricula and how project-based learning can be applied to GIS experiences. Introduces a project investigating non-geography college students' design and implementation of a environmental GIS application. (Contains 16 references.) (YDS)

How, where and why GIS is taught has been debated heavily in the geography literature. This article is a contribution to that debate, because it offers a new perspective from which to teach GIS: problem-based learning. In a problem-based learning classroom, theoretical foundations and the real world of problems are understood as constitutive of…

In the mid-1980s Spanish geography seemed to be a success story in relation to gender and geography (Garcia-Ramon et al. , 1988 ). But in recent years this positive aspect has been less marked, at least in Catalan geography. The total percentage of women staff has remained quite steady but the male:female ratio has significantly increased among…

Geographers are fully engaged in the debate surrounding the impact of new information and communication technologies (ICT) and there has been a proliferation of research on the impact of ICT on geographical education. This includes analyses of how ICT may affect geographical learning paradigms (Hill & Solem, 1999; Rich et al., 2000; Solem, 2000)…

This article describes an alternative way of teaching about biomes by having students become expert biogeographers. In order to become experts students need to first find out what a biogeographer does. Doing an online search lets students find out for themselves what the responsibilities are of people who work in this field. A good place to visit…

An example of the way finding process when using verbal and other traditional maps among the Navajo Indians of the southwestern United States is presented. The scholarly literature on the Southwest offers examples of verbal maps that construct both linear space, such as trails, and broad geographical space, including hunting territories and large…

GIS requires training to use it to its potential. In 1996, ESRI began exploring ways to expand its successful educational programmes to a worldwide audience via the Web. The ESRI Virtual Campus (VC) opened in July 1997. The paper discusses a few of the many lessons learned during the operation of VC, related to content, community and…

Teacher educators from eight European countries undertook a collaborative study into children's understanding of their own national and European identity, their understanding of the geography and cultures of Europe and finally their understanding of how countries are governed. The views of the British children are reported here, set alongside a…