Focuses on using the World Wide Web as a means for creating large-scale collaborations that cut across institutional boundaries. Examines different strategies for employing these collaborations; in particular, centralized publishing using common guidelines and format, distributed publishing using common interfaces and protocols, and…

Presents a lesson for high school students in which they collect and analyze data using questions from the actual Census 2000 long form and then participate in a simulation of a local planning council meeting to consider the short- and long-term community needs. Includes the Census 2000 long form. (CMK)

Presents a lesson about frontier life in Texas and is based on the National Register of Historic Places registration file "Castolon Historic District" and other source materials about Castolon and ranching in the Big Bend region. States that the lesson could be incorporated into units on westward expansion or U.S. geography. (CMK)

Discusses aspects of cultural understanding, particularly intercultural understanding, and addresses the development of cultural understanding through geography. Argues that textbooks and other secondary sources should present information about places and communities as changing and contested. Examines five primary geography textbook series and…

Discusses how teachers can facilitate greater cultural understanding and acceptance among their students. Describes activities for primary school students that are useful in promoting cultural understanding and acceptance, such as a unit on comparing folk tales and exploring cultures through art. Includes a bibliography of resources. (CMK)

Explores Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives, related to geography skills (mapping, locational distribution, directional skills, locational change, decision making), on topics such as geographic place names, location of indigenous language speaking groups, traditional stories as navigational tools, shifts in population, and mining.…

The Bermuda Triangle is famous for the unexplained disappearances of ships and aircraft, and for strange meteorological phenomena that allegedly have occurred within its boundaries. This article presents an activity wherein students are asked to create their own geographical triangles to research, but instead of focusing on the unexplainable,…

Research into the research-teaching "nexus" has undergone significant changes in focus and methodology. From an initial quantitative concern with correlating measurements of research productivity and teaching effectiveness, the empirical emphasis has shifted in favour of exploring the "experiences" of participants (academics…

Because assessment reflects course pedagogy, aims, objectives but also broader institutional and cultural expectations, traditional examination still has a role in the new media of asynchronous, distance learning. This paper recounts experiences of incorporating such examination within an Internet-delivered, GIScience programme, outlining some…

This article explores issues of scalability and sustainability in distance learning. The authors kept detailed records of time they spent teaching a course in geographic information science via the World Wide Web over a six-month period, during which class sizes averaged 49 students. The authors also surveyed students' satisfaction with the…

Background: Environmental issues are frequently controversial and involve conflicting interests and values. Much environmental education literature explicitly encourages teachers to promote pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours amongst their students, despite evidence that teacher support for such a policy is ambiguous at best. The literature…

The region of South-eastern Europe has been under two different socioeconomic regimes until the early 1990s, so the development of both geographical and environmental education in the region is now in the process of significant changes. Hence, the current problems relating to geographical and/or environmental education differ significantly among…

There are undoubtedly many parallels between Australia and New Zealand in the history of geographic information system (GIS) in schools. These parallels occur in the social, institutional, professional development, and curricula areas, and each of these topics is considered in this article. In New Zealand at least, there is still a lot that needs…

In recent years, geomatics has had a tremendous effect on geographical education at the post-secondary level. Courses, departments and even entire colleges such as the College of Geographic Sciences in Nova Scotia, Canada, are now dedicated to its study and use. Predictably, the impact of geomatics on classroom teaching at the secondary level has…

Education in rural communities is an interesting site for an analysis of the relationship between place and the cultural politics of schooling. In particular the movements of people, ideas and practices to and from, and also within, rural places suggest the need for theorizing on rural education to consider the relevance of new mobility…