The Importance Of Geography In Education

In all three of these artifacts, I have developed relevant, integrative, challenging, and exploratory units of study. The “Preserving the Past” unit incorporates all four core subjects as well as a service learning opportunity. My interdisciplinary unit on geography connects Language Arts with Social Studies with visual art mixed in, and the Greek mythology ELA unit was taught in conjunction with a Social Studies class (1). The Civil War unit and NC geography unit I have created incorporate Common Core standards as well as NC Essential standards. Lesson plans and assessments in all of these units were created using backwards design in which I started by looking at the standards and objectives students would be expected to reach and based my assessment based on those objectives (2,10).

The Five Themes of Geography are: Location – Absolute points on a map or grid or Relative to where something may be; Place – The physical and/or human characteristics of a locations; Human/Environment Interactions – How humans have impacted the landscape or environment; Relationship between places Movement – How humans interact on the earth (i.e. how they communicate over distance (short or long)) and Regions – a unit of space that has commonalities defined by physical, human and environmental geography. The Explorers of the New World may have not known what the Five Themes of Geography were but they quickly learned. Of the five themes the ones that they all took advantage of was the physical Location and Place as they learned to navigate

Gibbs, G (1988) Learning by Doing, A guide to teaching and learning methods. Cheltenham: The Geography Discipline Network. (GDN).

Geography will never mean the same to me, the more I read the more I’ve learned it’ so much more than land and boundaries. What I’ve learned from this literature it seems to be the study of issues that affect people and the environment, and ways to solve the world’s problems. Geography is important because it affects all aspects of life. No matter what you are talking or thinking about geography is somehow involved. Everything in the world has a direct connection to place, location, interaction, movement, and region.

I believe that being able to implement the geography curriculum appropriately is ideally resulted based on the position the school is in, such as whether the teachers are interested or skilled in the subject, whether student’s strengths and learning are being acknowledged or unnoticed and whether staff members are supported in their learning by provided with appropriate resources or limited resources to share with the students. These points allowed me to again think back to my past and have a better understanding about why I may have lost interest in the subject of geography. I personally feel that once I finish my degree and start teaching, the first few years will be the toughest in that regard as I will lack support for subjects such as HSIE and along with other teachers have to invest more time and effort devising new resources and teaching methods to suit the new curriculum. The time that needs to be invested in making these resources will definitely affect other areas of teaching which can be a daunting

We need to know if it is mountainous, flat, wooded, urban, rural, near water, near the ocean, heavily populated, whether it has a vulnerable population to the assigned risk, etc. Paint the class a word picture of the area where you live. Do not just tell us where it is.

1. Asking geographic questions: Questions revolve around asking why things are where they are, how they got there and what is the significance of their being there (NGS)?

After participating in the Google Slide Presentation, What is Geography? and watching the video clip, reflect on the following questions and images.

As time passes by, with everything seeming in place, we push aside real life. Activities we like to pretend are not occurring are put on the bottom of the list. War, deadly tsunamis, earthquakes, terrorism, economic crisis, all real life changes which have occurred and are occurring now. People are becoming less knowledgeable than ever when it comes to geography. “Given the accelerating pace of change on our increasingly crowded planet, this may not be surprising- even if it is disturbing,” states Harm de Blij in his book “Why Geography Matters: More Than Ever.” While De Blij tells us how illiterate we have become to geography, he also explains to readers how American people could benefit from the knowledge of Geography in specific situations.

Over the course of the centuries maps have been used to find locations all over the world. They have evolved and to become more advanced, thanks to technology. Of course, there are specific ways to use a map such as basic components. Basic components include a compass rose which indicates the cardinal directions. Legends is the key where symbols are used to help find a point on the map, or in other words, lead the way. A scale can range from as far as a continent to as close as a house. All these components are important while using a map.

Strand 4 covers the area dealing with Geography. Geography helps the students learn about maps, legend/key, symbols, compass, etc. This helps the students with basic knowledge and understanding of the world they live on. The students get to explore and draw out their own complete maps with a legend and a compass. The students learn that the world is composed of land and water. They are

“Why Geography Matters More Than Ever,” was written by Harm De Blij. It was published August 17th 2012 by Oxford University Press, USA with 354 pages in it.

Introduce Compelling question “What are the main characteristics of the four geographical regions of California?” Introduce the question to students to get them thinking and engaged so they can pay attention when watching the video.

Maybe some people will think human geography has no relation between physical geography. But I think human geography has a great effect on physical geography, and physical geography has a great effect on human geography too.

After examining the Understanding by Design framework by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, I have learned how to develop a unit by working backwards. The development of a unit is multi-layered in its focus on curriculum, instruction, and assessment. In planning I need to first assess what the big ideas are that I want my students to learn and why they are so important. In our study of Mesopotamia, we look at how our world began with the first civilization and the achievements that led to advances throughout history. The big ideas framed as understandings that I want my students to know are that the locations of civilizations and city-states in relation to specific landforms affects development and technology achievements can benefit society in a variety of areas. Then I look at what essential questions are raised and what I want students to know and be able to do. The framework looks to deepen student understanding and transfer that understanding of knowledge and skill into a performance task and other evidence of formative and summative assessments.