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The Evidence Base for Social Studies: Geography
The Evidence Base for Social Studies: Geography
What This Means for Instruction
After a review of the research, a number of classroom techniques or applications have been found to be successful with children. Below are some general guidelines to help educators plan and implement the instruction of Geography:
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Use literature, including picture books, to teach geography (Hilke 1999; Macken 2003).
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Analyze historical sites, local architecture or events (military battles, founding of towns/cities) using geography as a way of organizing information for writing history (Stevens 2001).
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Have students create atlases consisting of a variety of maps (mental, nested, inset, historical, thematic, topical, etc.) and use these as references across the disciplines (Benson 2000; Montello 2004).
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Integrate the arts into projects that integrate geography with culture (quilts, poems and music) (Donaldson 2001; Hubbard 2000).
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To make geography relevant to their lives, involve kindergarten through grade 12 students in geographic field research (Butler and Wilkerson 2000).
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Invite geographers into the classroom to discuss their field of study (Orvis et al. 1999).
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Develop ties with field geographers and have students assist with research (Orvis et al. 1999).
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Develop map activities using a wide-variety of map types (projection, topographic, political, cartographic, etc.) (Leinhardt et al. 1998).
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Have students construct maps using various scales (e.g., changing 1" = 500 miles to 1" = 250 miles) and geographic notation (Leinhardt et al. 1998).
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