Teaching Geography
I was recently talking to one of my college students about her hometown. During the conversation, I asked her what it was near, so she named a couple of other towns – Naperville and Aurora specifically. I still couldn’t figure out where it was, so I asked if it was North, West, South, or whatever. She didn’t know. So, I asked what highways ran through it. She didn’t know. I finally opened MapQuest on my computer and located the town. Honestly, I was astonished that a college student didn’t really know how to get home!
How many of your students know where they live? Of course, a lot of younger kids probably know the street address – in case they get lost. But how many of them truly know where home is relative to the rest of the state and the country and the globe?
The research on social studies teaching says that kids learn the foundations of social studies during the elementary years, so it’s probably a good idea to put some focus on the standards that deal with that, specifically the following geography standards.
Early elementary:
17.A.1a Identify physical characteristics of places, both local and global (e.g., locations, roads, regions, bodies of water).
17.A.1b Identify the characteristics and purposes of geographic representations including maps, globes, graphs, photographs, software, digital images and be able to locate specific places using each.
Late elementary:
17.A.2a Compare the physical characteristics of places including soils, land forms, vegetation, wildlife, climate, natural hazards.
17.A.2b Use maps and other geographic representations and instruments to gather information about people, places and environments.
posted by Dr. Jim Vandergriff