Chapter 11 moves from economics towards Geography in Cantu's digital book! Finally, my favorite subject! I would have never guessed one of my placements for novice or student teaching would be in a geography classroom! On the other hand. I know of teachers and schools who believe geography is lesser than the core social studies courses, especially history, but my argument to those people is that, how can you tell the story of history without knowing about the place or the culture of the people where it took place? Like I have discussed with civics and economics education, it needs to be integrated in daily lessons! I believe a lesson should always begin with geography, so students can get that visual identification with the topic at hand! Geography is extremely important to learn at an early age because our students need to be spatially aware of the world and how it has changed over time. As soon as your AP European history begins, there will not be much time spent dissecting the countries geography, students will need to have that prior knowledge.
The National Council for Geographic Education has their five themes which include: location, place, relationships, movement, and region. Cantu's book make sure its readers understand that Geography is not just focused on one aspect, like maps, but it looks at more in depth topics like weather and natural disasters. Many aspects of geography are happen around our students every day and it is easy to make those kinds of connections on a daily basis. It is extremely important for students to recognize their interactions with geography and the environment they live in and eventually have the make connections to other places around the globe! In the geography class I am teaching now is currently writing letters to a middle school in Costa Rica and it is helping them make connections to others on a global scale!
Big Question: Should geography be its own course and be taught in different levels of schooling or should it just be integrated within other subject areas?
My favorite geography games website!!
http://world-geography-games.com/
I think that geography should be it's own class because it is just as important as history I think geography should be the class that goes with history just like math and science cross over all the time
ReplyDelete