In this article, a retired long-time geography teacher offers his perspective on what a geography teacher needs to keep in mind when teaching geography. The author notes that geography is a useful school subject because it helps young people make their way in the world by giving them some tools to become lifelong learners. The author encourages…

While many college physical geography instructors already use a wide variety of creative teaching approaches in their classes, others have not yet been exposed to teaching with toys, household items, or food. The goal in this article is to present some ideas for teaching college-level physical geography (weather/climate and geomorphology) for…

Growing up in Loretto, Tennessee, population 1,700, people called it "going to town" when they went to any city big enough to have a McDonald's, Walmart, or a movie theater. If someone is not from a small town, they may not know what type of economic activities a small town can support. Will the town have a police department? Will there be enough…

The challenge of teaching AP Human Geography to high school students is to make geography relevant, engaging and "real world." Often the pace of teaching AP classes constrains the ability of teachers to do creative projects and truly engage students until after the exam is over in May. In this lesson plan, the author suggests using "Petites…

Though lasting less than 200 years, large-scale rice production in South Carolina and Georgia "probably represented the most significant utilization of the tidewater zone for crop agriculture ever attained in the United States." Rice is a specialty crop where successful cultivation relied heavily upon "adaptation" to nature via imported…

Functional literacy is important in both English/language arts and geography. Using the "found poetry" strategy, students will summarize a piece of text, identify main ideas and find geographic connections. While using young adult literature is a great way to incorporate geography into English/language arts classroom, understanding of geography…

This article presents an activity that engages the student in the geographic inquiry process, the student acquires geographic data and analyzes geographic information to answer a geographic question. The question is: "Do students in my class have place name mastery of the 50 states?" The activity assesses students' geo-literacy and shows the…

Teaching AP Human Geography to freshmen seems like a daunting task and while there are many arguments both for and against offering the course to freshmen, for many teachers it is reality. In this article, the author offers nine tips to help high school freshmen be successful in the course and on the AP exam.

This lesson plan is based on "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins. Characters in "The Hunger Games" form alliances both inside and outside the arena. Katniss and Gale form alliances within District 12. Katniss, Peeta, and the other tributes form alliances for a variety of reasons during the Games. An alliance means that "someone's got your back"…

This lesson is designed as a lab assignment for Advanced Placement (AP) Human Geography students wherein they use the popular Gapminder web site to compare levels of development in countries from different world regions. For this lesson, it is important for the teacher to practice with Gapminder before giving the assignment to students. (Contains…

In the earliest days of American education, leaders in educational theory and practice believed that the curriculum should revolve around the child's lived experiences. Geography, therefore, should hold a prominent place in the curriculum since it is through geographic concepts that children first experience the world around them. Reading and…

This lesson plan is based on Suzanne Collins's book, "The Hunger Games." Katniss and Gale know about District 12 and the surrounding woods. Additionally, from television coverage, they know that there are twelve districts and the Capitol. District 13 used to exist until the rebellion. But where are these districts now that the geography of North…

Everyone should be able to read, communicate their ideas, and work effectively with everyday numbers and scientific thinking. But many need a closer tie between book learning and the real world, a reason to dig deeper into facts and principles, the opportunity to relate subjects to what they know. Kids are natural explorers and integrators. The…

Many geography and technology educators have been attracted to geospatial technologies because of the potential to help students develop and demonstrate spatial and higher order thinking skills, only to be frustrated with implementation at the school level. Even when teachers have overcome the technical hurdles of hardware, software, and data,…

The identity of geography as a discipline since the nineteenth-century naissance of contemporary academia, if not before, has been often disputed. In higher education, geography is often part of the geosciences, often located in a geography, geology, earth science, and environmental science department or departments. In the world of education…