New Geography Standards: Geography for Life
List of Eighteen National Geography Standards
General Education Materials Related to Exotic
Species in the United States|
New Geography Standards: Geography for Life |
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List of Eighteen National Geography Standards |
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General Education Materials Related to Exotic
Species in the United States |
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GEOGRAPHY STANDARDS: GEOGRAPHY FOR LIFE by Roger M. Downs (source from http://www.nationalgeographic.com/resources/ngo/education/standards.html) |
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“Geography for Life” is the new geography standards.
Organizing the Subject
The subject matter is organized into two levels. At the first level, geography
is divided into six essential elements. By essential we mean necessary; we must
look at the world in this way. By element, we mean a building block for the
whole. At the second level, each essential element contains a number of
geography standards, each of which contains a set of related ideas and
approaches to the subject matter of geography.
There are 18 standards. Because we cannot discuss all of them here, let’s pick one essential element, the World in Spatial Terms, and look at one standard to get a sense of what the content of geography looks like when it is converted to standards language. The World in Spatial Terms is the beginning of geography; if we study the relationships between people, places, and environments, then we must do so by mapping information about them into a spatial context. And so the first standard, the first of three in this element, is “how to use maps and other geographic representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective.” Broad, yes, but deliberately so.
To help you focus things on your classroom and your needs, there is an essay explaining the standard. Then, for each of the three grade levels, there is a section explaining the things that the student should know and another section explaining the things that the student should be able to do. And finally, there are sets of learning opportunities suggesting what you and your students might be able to do with these ideas in the classroom.
The standards are designed to be worked with, added to, refined, reorganized. And as you do that, you will find strong connections with the familiar five themes of geography education that were outlined in the 1984 Guidelines for Geographic Education. In other words, the standards offer one more step along a path that many teachers have been following for years.
The standards are a big step forward because they give geography a national prominence in education policy. But equally well, they give you the chance to feature geography at the local level in your classroom. Applicable and relevant to all states and school districts, the standards are designed to allow you to place different emphasis on the material, to select different examples, to teach the ideas in different ways. Standards are voluntary, and they will work only if you can feel comfortable with them and can make them work for you.
As teachers interested in and
committed to geography, you and I know that the power and beauty of geography
lies in the ability to understand the web of relationships among people, places,
and environments. Helping us share that knowledge is the point of the National
Geography Standards.
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18
National Geography Standards
(source from http://www.nationalgeographic.com/resources/ngo/education/standardslist.html)
The goal of the National Geography Standards is to produce a geographically
informed person who sees meaning in the arrangement of things in space and
applies a spatial perspective to life situations. The geographically informed
person knows and understands:
The World in Spatial Terms
1. How to use maps and other geographic representations, tools, and
technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial
perspective
2. How to use mental maps to organize information about people, places, and
environments in a spatial context
3. How to analyze the spatial organization of people, places, and environments
on earth’s surface
Places and Regions
4. The physical and human characteristics of places
5. That people create regions to interpret earth’s complexity
6. How culture and experience influence people’s perceptions of places and
regions
Physical Systems
7. The physical processes that shape the patterns of earth’s surface
8. The characteristics and spatial distribution of ecosystems on earth’s
surface
Human Systems
9. The characteristics, distribution, and migration of human populations on
earth’s surface
10. The characteristics, distribution, and complexity of earth’s cultural
mosaics
11. The patterns and networks of economic interdependence on earth’s surface
12. The processes, patterns, and functions of human settlement
13. How the forces of cooperation and conflict among people influence the
division and control of earth’s surface
Environment and Society
14. How human actions modify the physical environment
15. How physical systems affect human systems
16. The changes that occur in the meaning, use, distribution, and importance of
resources
The Uses of Geography
17. How to apply geography to interpret the past
18. How to apply geography to interpret the present and plan for the future
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