Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Using your fi nger, outline this belt or area”. This helps students develop an
awareness of area symbols. Then a suggestion can be made based on such
information, such as, “Imagine the extent of industries in the Chukyo Industrial
Belt, home to the highest production in Japan.” Random reading of map symbols
does not contribute to the formation of a mental map. Rather, by adopting gestures
of pointing to, tracing, and outlining points, lines, and areas with their fi ngers per
the teacher's instruction, a coordinated feedback mechanism forms between the
child's own body and the map information. Such experiences form a mental map in
the student's mind and improve their level of understanding.
8.4
Maps in a Supporting Role Within Geography Education
Maps are useful learning material outside of geography education. They can serve as a
language for conveying the locations of events, and can be applied across academic
fi elds in the natural and Social Sciences to all aspects of our daily life. Maps are also
important in geography education. However, if maps are more widely recognized as key
to developing children's cognitive space, wouldn't it be more appropriate to assign maps
a supporting role in geography? Geography education divides its content between topics
of landforms and climate, industrial locations, regional change, trade, leisure activities,
relationships between humans and nature, and a geographical view and way of thinking.
Each of these topics relies on maps as a way to record and represent information. A
variety of thematic maps have been created, with many maps and atlases sold in book-
stores. It is necessary to recognize the supportive role of maps in geography education
and to communicate their characteristics to the wider society.
The National Geographic Society (NGS) headquarters in Washington, D.C.
showcases geography in a different light than in Japan. One reason for this is that the
U.S. society is actively educating the public and schools about the value of geography
in astronomy, biology, geology, history, and medicine. The NGS produces a variety of
maps that engage people's intellectual curiosity about geography.
In Japan, there is a strong image of geography as belonging to Social Studies as
a school subject, and the view of maps is tied to a fi xed concept. Maps used in medi-
cine show body regions or disease symptoms, and maps can also show the habitat of
wild animals. However, these types of maps do not appear in geography education
in Japan. If society understood the extent to which maps are used in different profes-
sions, geography education would be a leader in map use. Thus, maps should be
elevated from a supporting actor to a substantial role in geography education.
It is regrettable that globes are not used more in our everyday lives. It is a waste
for them to be used as nothing more than decoration in a company reception room
or the teacher prep room in a Social Studies department offi ce. If people devel-
oped the habit of looking at globes when thinking about world events, environ-
mental problems or international confl icts could be better understood. Then,
Japanese people would be more active in dialog about world events. To imagine
how people are living right now in Paris or New York is part of an international
mindset. Exercises in measuring distances or areas on a globe, verifying place
