Geography

Su Hickenbottom

No Child Left Behind has left a huge gap in our teaching of geography and other subjects in the social studies. New schools are not providing maps and globes, but relying on technology to fill the gap. It is not the same. Sometimes, students make connections looking at a map that they wouldn't make from a short presentation from the computer.   --> read more »

--Stephen J. Thornton
Standard accounts of U.S. history present a chronology of events that begins in the East and moves west. An alternative approach traces Spanish exploration and settlement in what is now the American Southwest.
* http://publications.socialstudies.org/se/7701/77011319.pdf

--Rodney Kite-Powell
Two key maps that show the “known world” from the European perspective before Christopher Columbus’s voyages illustrate the knowledge of intellectuals of that period and reveal tales of exploration, conflict, and change.
* http://publications.socialstudies.org/se/7701/77011314.pdf

--Luis Martínez Fernández
Approaching the encounter between Europe and the Americas as an intellectual rather than a physical discovery enables students to go beyond memorization to gain an understanding of Medieval and Renaissance ways of acquiring knowledge.
* http://publications.socialstudies.org/se/7701/77011307.pdf

The National Geographic Society and the three major professional geography organizations in the U.S. have received a grant from the National Science Foundation to create a “Road Map” for the future of geographic education.   --> read more »

NCSS was recently contacted by the National Geographic Society regarding the Teaching Geography is Fundamental Act, HR 1228.  This is a bill that NCSS has promoted on Capitol Hill and for which NCSS has helped secure many co-sponsors. The act would ensure federal support for geography comparable to the eight other core academic subjects identified by the No Child Left Behind Act.   --> read more »

Sponsored by Herff Jones | Nystrom   --> read more »