Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
the pupils to a unique Brazil, explaining them the differentiation of colors
depending on the types of relief etc. We wanted to show them that the States are
a recent chapter in Humanity's history, as pointed out in the “Notes on the Educa-
tion of visual maps: The nature of the idea of representation”, by Oliveira Jr ( 2009 ).
The next step was to get the map of the city of Rio Claro to try find out the
localization of the school and of the houses in which each of the pupils lived.
This phase of activity was a lot of fun to the pupils because they all wanted to be
faster than the others in finding the school and their homes. For this activity, we
used only a city map available at newsstands. To finish this practice, we individu-
ally asked the pupils to draw up mental maps of the possible routes from their
homes to the school. Some of them went further by placing signs in Portuguese
language about reference points along the way, like stores, streets, etc. By doing
this activity, we aimed to increase their spatial perception in different scales and we
wanted to encourage the pupils to think about a possible hierarchy: World—
Continent—Country—State—City—Suburb.
On this first map (Fig. 22.7 ), made by the same pupil that made Fig. 22.2 , there
was a concern to make it flat, like a conventional map. It is interesting to note that
again she was concerned about indicating reference points in Portuguese language
(aunt's house, bar, market, etc.). The pupil also used symbols to point her reference
marks, such as crosses to represent the churches along her journey from home to
school. One aspect that caught attention was that while developing her map, the
Fig. 22.7 Map of pupil Nathalia with landmarks and directions in Portuguese
Search WWH ::




Custom Search