The five themes of geography are an educational tool for teaching geography. The five themes were published in 1984 [1] and widely adopted by teachers, textbook publishers, and curriculum designers in the United States. [2] Most American geography and social studies classrooms have adopted the five themes in teaching practices, [3] as they provide "an alternative to the detrimental, but unfortunately persistent, habit of teaching geography through rote memorization". [1] They are pedagogical themes that guide how geographic content should be taught in schools. [4]
Five Themes of geography: [5]
Every point on Earth has a location. Location can be described in two different ways:
Every site on Earth has a unique absolute location, which can be identified with a reference grid (such as latitude and longitude). Maps and globes can be used to find location and can also be used to convey other types of geographical information. Map projections are used to represent the three-dimensional Earth on a two-dimensional map. The Earth's position relative to the Sun affects climate, seasons, and time zones. [1] Location as a theme helps teachers to demonstrate to students that observers have to know and be able to explain where something is before it can be examined geographically. [4] It allows the examination of spatial relationships using spatial ideas such as distance, direction, adjacency, proximity, and enclosure. [4]
A place is an area that is defined by everything in it. It differs from location in that a place is conditions and features, and location is a position in space. [4] Places have physical characteristics, such as landforms and plant and animal life, as well as human characteristics, such as economic activities and languages. [1] All places have features that give them personality and distinguish them from other places. It is a combination of the “features, perceptions, and activities that occur in a given location". [4]
This theme describes how people interact with the environment, and how the environment responds, with three key concepts: [6]
Sub-themes include "the earth as an environmental system" (including the role and problems of technology, environmental hazards and limits, and adaptation) and "ethics and values" (differing cultural values and the trade-off between economic development and environmental protection). [1] In the original 1984 Guidelines for Geographic Education: Elementary and Secondary Schools, this was called “relationships within places". It focused on the advantages and disadvantages for human settlement in places. [7] It was later renamed to human-environment interaction. [4] This theme is not exclusive to geography, as it is a goal for many disciplines of study. [4]
Movement is the travel of people, goods, and ideas from one location to another. Examples of movement include the United States' westward expansion, the Information Revolution, and immigration. New devices such as the airplane and the Internet allow physical and ideological goods to be transferred long distances in short time intervals. A person's travel from place to place, and the actions they perform there are also considered movement.
Places are connected by movement: [1]
In the original 1984 Guidelines for Geographic Education: Elementary and Secondary Schools document, movement was called “relationships between places". [4] Transportation routes and telephone lines that link people all over the world are visible examples of relationships between places. [7]
Regions are areas with distinctive characteristics: human characteristics, such as demographics or politics, and physical characteristics, such as climate and vegetation. For example, the US is a political region because it shares one governmental system.
Regions may have clear, well-defined borders or vague boundaries. [1]
Uniform regions and formal regions share a similar definition, with formal regions being “a group of places that have similar conditions". [4] Even in formal regions, it is true that no region is completely homogeneous, as characteristics vary from place to place. [4] While regions all share at least one common trait, it is true that they can have multiple traits that unite them, an example being a region that shares a language and a government. [7]
The five themes of geography were published in the 1984 Guidelines for Geographic Education: Elementary and Secondary Schools by the National Council for Geographic Education/Association of American Geographers Joint Committee on Geographic Education. [1] The document was 28 pages, and suggested the themes as a way for teachers to organize content for geography classes. [4] The committee included Salvatore J. Natoli, Richard G. Boehm, James B. Kracht, David A. Lanegran, Janice J. Monk, and Robert W. Morrill. [2] They settled on five themes: location, place, relationships within places (later changed to human-environment interaction), relationships between places (later shortened to movement), and region. [4] The themes were not a "new geography" but rather a conceptual structure for organizing information about geography. [1]
The themes became widespread in American social science education and were used for teacher training by the National Geographic Society's statewide alliances. They also played a role in reestablishing geography in school curricula. [1] When the National Geography Standards were released in 1994, people compared them to the five themes, saying that the themes had a simplicity that the new standards were lacking. [4]
In 1992, a National Assessment of Educational Progress consensus group said that the five themes are useful for teaching, but that for assessment, geography should be divided into the three topics of "space and place", "environment and society", and "spatial dynamic and connections". [1]
The five themes continue to be used as an educational approach in many educational outlets. [3] As of 2012, they are included in the National Council for the Social Studies elementary school standards and in state social studies standards. [8]
The five themes continue to be used as an educational approach in many educational outlets. [3] As of 2012, they are included in the National Council for the Social Studies elementary school standards and in state social studies standards. [8] The influence of the five themes can still be found in many standards, such as the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Standards for elementary grades. [9] With the increase of emphasis placed on standardized testing in the United States, social studies, and thus geography, is receiving less time in elementary classrooms. [10]
Human geography or anthropogeography is the branch of geography which studies spatial relationships between human communities, cultures, economies, and their interactions with the environment, examples of which include urban sprawl and urban redevelopment. It analyzes spatial interdependencies between social interactions and the environment through qualitative and quantitative methods.This multidisciplinary approach draws from sociology, anthropology, economics, and environmental science, contributing to a comprehensive understanding of the intricate connections that shape lived spaces.
A primary school, elementary school, or grade school is a school for primary education of children who are 4 to 10 years of age. Primary schooling follows preschool and precedes secondary schooling.
In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics, human impact characteristics, and the interaction of humanity and the environment. Geographic regions and sub-regions are mostly described by their imprecisely defined, and sometimes transitory boundaries, except in human geography, where jurisdiction areas such as national borders are defined in law. More confined or well bounded portions are called locations or places.
A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" and the Greek suffix, "graphy", meaning "description", so a geographer is someone who studies the earth. The word "geography" is a Middle French word that is believed to have been first used in 1540.
Economic geography is the subfield of human geography that studies economic activity and factors affecting it. It can also be considered a subfield or method in economics.
Science education is the teaching and learning of science to school children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education includes work in science content, science process, some social science, and some teaching pedagogy. The standards for science education provide expectations for the development of understanding for students through the entire course of their K-12 education and beyond. The traditional subjects included in the standards are physical, life, earth, space, and human sciences.
In many countries' curricula, social studies is the combined study of humanities, the arts, and social sciences, mainly including history, economics, and civics. The term was first coined by American educators around the turn of the twentieth century as a catch-all for these subjects, as well as others which did not fit into the models of lower education in the United States such as philosophy and psychology. One of the purposes of social studies, particularly at the level of higher education, is to integrate several disciplines, with their unique methodologies and special focuses of concentration, into a coherent field of subject areas that communicate with each bread by sharing different academic "tools" and perspectives for deeper analysis of social problems and issues. Social studies aims to train students for informed, responsible participation in a diverse democratic society. The content of social studies provides the necessary background knowledge in order to develop values and reasoned opinions, and the objective of the field is civic competence. A related term is humanities, arts, and social sciences, abbreviated HASS.
A Bachelor of Education is an undergraduate academic degree which prepares students for work as a teacher in schools. A Bachelor of Education program typically lasts three to four years and combines both coursework and practical experience in educational settings. The curriculum is designed to provide foundational knowledge in pedagogy, educational psychology, teaching methodologies, and subject-specific training. Graduates of this program are equipped with the skills necessary to foster a supportive and effective learning environment for their students.
Urban geography is the subdiscipline of geography that derives from a study of cities and urban processes. Urban geographers and urbanists examine various aspects of urban life and the built environment. Scholars, activists, and the public have participated in, studied, and critiqued flows of economic and natural resources, human and non-human bodies, patterns of development and infrastructure, political and institutional activities, governance, decay and renewal, and notions of socio-spatial inclusions, exclusions, and everyday life. Urban geography includes different other fields in geography such as the physical, social, and economic aspects of urban geography. The physical geography of urban environments is essential to understand why a town is placed in a specific area, and how the conditions in the environment play an important role with regards to whether or not the city successfully develops. Social geography examines societal and cultural values, diversity, and other conditions that relate to people in the cities. Economic geography is important to examine the economic and job flow within the urban population. These various aspects involved in studying urban geography are necessary to better understand the layout and planning involved in the development of urban environments worldwide.
Environmental education (EE) refers to organized efforts to teach how natural environments function, and particularly, how human beings can manage behavior and ecosystems to live sustainably. It is a multi-disciplinary field integrating disciplines such as biology, chemistry, physics, ecology, earth science, atmospheric science, mathematics, and geography.
An animal sanctuary is a facility where animals are brought to live and to be protected for the rest of their lives. Pattrice Jones, co-founder of VINE Sanctuary defines an animal sanctuary as "a safe-enough place or relationship within the continuing hazards that menace everybody". In addition, sanctuaries are an experimental staging ground for transformative human–animal relations. There are five types of animal sanctuaries reflective of the species-belonging of the residents: 1) companion animal sanctuaries; 2) wildlife sanctuaries; 3) exotic animal sanctuaries; 4) farmed animal sanctuaries; and 5) cetacean sanctuaries.
Geographic mobility is the measure of how populations and goods move over time. Geographic mobility, population mobility, or more simply mobility is also a statistic that measures migration within a population. Commonly used in demography and human geography, it may also be used to describe the movement of animals between populations. These moves can be as large scale as international migrations or as small as regional commuting arrangements. Geographic mobility has a large impact on many sociological factors in a community and is a current topic of academic research. It varies between different regions depending on both formal policies and established social norms, and has different effects and responses in different societies. Population mobility has implications ranging from administrative changes in government and impacts on local economic growth to housing markets and demand for regional services.
The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) is a private, non-profit association based in Silver Spring, Maryland, that provides leadership, support, and advocacy for social studies education.
Tourism geography is the study of travel and tourism, as an industry and as a social and cultural activity. Tourism geography covers a wide range of interests including the environmental impact of tourism, the geographies of tourism and leisure economies, answering tourism industry and management concerns and the sociology of tourism and locations of tourism.
Place-based education, sometimes called pedagogy of place, place-based learning, experiential education, community-based education, environmental education or more rarely, service learning, is an educational philosophy. The term was coined in the early 1990s by Laurie Lane-Zucker of The Orion Society and Dr. John Elder of Middlebury College. Orion's early work in the area of place-based education was funded by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. Although educators have used its principles for some time, the approach was developed initially by The Orion Society, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit organization, as well as Professor David Sobel, Project Director at Antioch University New England.
Geography is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding of Earth and its human and natural complexities—not merely where objects are, but also how they have changed and come to be. While geography is specific to Earth, many concepts can be applied more broadly to other celestial bodies in the field of planetary science. Geography has been called "a bridge between natural science and social science disciplines."
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to geography:
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to social science:
Spatial citizenship describes the ability of individuals and groups to interact and participate in societal spatial decision making through the reflexive production and use of geo-media. Spatial citizens are lay users who are able to use geo-media to question existing perspectives on action in space and to produce, communicate, and negotiate alternative spatial visions.
The term learning environment can refer to an educational approach, cultural context, or physical setting in which teaching and learning occur. The term is commonly used as a more definitive alternative to "classroom", but it typically refers to the context of educational philosophy or knowledge experienced by the student and may also encompass a variety of learning cultures—its presiding ethos and characteristics, how individuals interact, governing structures, and philosophy. In a societal sense, learning environment may refer to the culture of the population it serves and of their location. Learning environments are highly diverse in use, learning styles, organization, and educational institution. The culture and context of a place or organization includes such factors as a way of thinking, behaving, or working, also known as organizational culture. For a learning environment such as an educational institution, it also includes such factors as operational characteristics of the instructors, instructional group, or institution; the philosophy or knowledge experienced by the student and may also encompass a variety of learning cultures—its presiding ethos and characteristics, how individuals interact, governing structures, and philosophy in learning styles and pedagogies used; and the societal culture of where the learning is occurring. Although physical environments do not determine educational activities, there is evidence of a relationship between school settings and the activities that take place there.