Updating a Hungarian Website About Maps for Children - Maps for the Future Children Education and Internet - page 185

Table 15.1 (continued)
My first atlas (Cartographia
2008)

School atlas for 10-16 year-old
pupils (Cartographia 2008)

Secondary school atlas
(Cartographia 2008)

9. Types of settlements: city,
town and farm in an aerial
photo and on a map

9. Other thematic maps:
climate, soils, political,
economic, nationalities,
ethnographic

9. Tourist map at 1:40,000
(Danube Bend, Legend)

10. Physical and political
maps: Hungary, Europe
and Earth

10. Other thematic maps:
similar to the atlas for
10-16 years-old pupils

11. Other thematic maps:
climate, soils, political,
economic, nationalities,
ethnographic

the reading of textbooks related to Geography to determine if there was any kind of
significant changes during the last 10 years (Hartd´genn´ et al. 2010 ). It was
completed with the study of some of the School Atlases used in the Elementary
and Secondary Schools of Hungary (Cartographia 2008a , b , c ) to determine the
basic cartographic concepts presented or at least mentioned in the introductory
pages of these atlases (Table 15.1 ).
After 2000, the number of hours/week dedicated to the teaching of Geography
subjects remained the same: 3 h at basic level (Elementary Schools) and 4 h at
secondary level (Secondary and Vocational Schools). In grades 4 and 5, Hungarian
pupils learn a subject entitled “Basics about Nature”, combining knowledge mainly
from Geography and Biology. The concepts related to cartography have not been
modified considerably, but in numerous schools the teaching of these concepts has
been moved to later grades in respect to our previous research in 1997-2000. The
more detailed explanation of these concepts follows being presented in the
textbooks written for the fifth grade (“Basics about Nature”, see Table 15.2 ), but
some regional curricula planned the teaching of them in grade 6.
After revising the themes presented in the original version of the website and
comparing them with the content of textbooks and school atlases, we decided to use
the same map concepts without any considerable change. Based on this decision,
the structure of chapters remained the same and the detailed content of the website
is as follows:
• Map and reality (seven themes: Earth and former worldviews, shape of the
Earth, what can we find on a globe, from the globe to a plain: how to make a
map?, what is a map?, what makes a map a map?, graphic scale)
• Orientation with and without maps (eight themes: How could a cave man
orient?, the first compass, compasses in Europe, cardinal points, using a com-
pass, orienteering with the Sun, in the forest and at night)
• Map history (nine themes: the first maps, maps on rocks, on clay and papyrus,
Greek scholars, Roman maps, maps of the Middle Ages, portolans, maps of
Discoverers, Mercator and Ortelius, the first Hungarian map)