Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 16
Teaching Cartography to Children Through
Interactive Media
Marli Cigagna Wiefels and Jonas da Costa Sampaio
Abstract Computer technology arrives very quickly to schools where young
students from the first grades already utilize it for electronic games, for access to
internet or for video games, among friends or in family. The proposal to build an
interactive media with the basic information about the city of Niter´ i (State of Rio
de Janeiro) was the first step of an activity intended to help geography teachers in
their daily work. The municipality of Niter ´ i, located in the State of Rio de Janeiro,
has 458.465 inhabitants (2001) and is the scenario of all geographic information
provided by this media. The location of UFF in this municipality and the edition of
the school Atlas of the municipality of Niter ´ i, implemented during a former
university project, constituted the main inspiration for the present project. Students
and school children were mobilized for the project and contributed providing
information for the media. All begins with a mental map of the schoolchild going
to school, with different graphic situations: the street of the school, the school
itself, the classroom. It is in these places that all events of the media happen.
According to the Brazilian National Programme parameters (Brazilian Ministry
of Education (2011) Parˆmetros Curriculares Nacional (PCN). http://portal.mec.
gov.br/seb/arquivos/pdf/livro01.pdf and http://portal.mec.gov.br/ seb/arquivos/
pdf/geografia.pdf . Accessed 20 June 2011) one should “know how to use different
information sources and technological resources in order to build the elements of
knowledge”. This is very propitious to the introduction of this media in the first
grades of the basic school. The building of mental maps, the understanding of
photographic images, orientation, environment and the graphical recognition of
objects are the main themes treated in the media. In the present project, school and
graphic cartography provide the young pupils with a material which stimulates
them to learn and with recreational activities which strengthen their liking for
geography and cartography. At the end of the project, the media will be open to
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