Transcript Teaching WITH Maps - Texas A&M College of Geosciences

Teaching WITH Maps
TAAS Analysis “mapped” to TAKS:
What are we not doing right?
Geography and History: What can we
do?
Teaching WITH Maps: At least 15
ideas…
TAAS --> TAKS
What is the problem?
Geography and History
It is impossible…
Geography and History
Recreate the geography of the past
What was the geographic context?
• Human and physical characteristics?
• Transportation routes, access to other
places, cultural orientation, links and
barriers
• Human processes: how did people live in their
world?
Geography and History
How has it changed?
How did the geographic context
influence and shape events?
How did people perceive the world
(and its geography) then?
Teaching WITH Maps
See the geographic context by
teaching with maps
And personal accounts, data, pictures,
literature and poems, songs,
technological artifacts
HOW?
Teaching WITH Maps
Constantly link what with where
And what it is like at that place (human
and physical characteristics)
Teaching WITH Maps
Use maps of all kinds to teach
e.g., battles; election results; where presidents
were born; explorer’s routes; growth of US
cities over time; expansion of roads; railroads;
canals; location of key economic activities;
ethnic distribution patterns; religions and
migration patterns; physical features; and so
on…
Teaching WITH Maps
Have students make maps of historical
information
Story maps, e.g., for study aids
Formal thematic maps, e.g., slave vs free states
at different periods of time; distribution of
colonies by imperial power in 1800, 1850, 1900;
1950 and 2000; largest world cities in 1800,
1850, 1900, 1950, and 2000