Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
compelled to communicate with people of a different generation and with adults in the
local community. These experiences support their building of lifelong skills such as
creating social and professional networks (Takeuchi
2010
).
7.4
Future Challenges of Field Research
7.4.1
Issues on Field Research Content
As noted above, fi eld research can provide students with a variety of learning oppor-
tunities not possible through classroom teaching. The author believes, however, that
we must examine the following tasks carefully to effectively conduct fi eld research
in geography classes.
The fi rst task is to examine the content and methods of fi eld research and align
them with the developmental stages of children. Empirical research on the develop-
ment of individual abilities has been accumulated,
5
but aside from Inui (
2009
) there
has been no study aimed at designing fi eld research materials appropriate for
students' developmental stages at elementary, junior high, and senior high school
levels. Therefore, it is necessary to examine how best to engage fi eld research that
is appropriate to each developmental stage.
The second task is to identify ways to nurture students' abilities to research
geographical issues. As mentioned above, an unexpected discovery about their local
area enhances their enthusiasm for learning. However, most students lack suffi cient
knowledge and experience to investigate important local geographic phenomena.
Therefore, we need to teach them a basic perspective for observing a region of inter-
est carefully beforehand, so they can select a theme and discover geographic char-
acteristics and tasks. In reality, however, most teachers fail to teach students research
skills to capture geographic phenomena, contributing to thee failure to initiate fi eld
research.
It is important to help students develop a perspective and sense of the local area
under study, by fi rst examining pictures of the region (Shibusawa
1985
). Excursions
are also effective in developing students' geographic perspectives. These activities,
which are generally conducted in university-level geography courses, are expected to
have a positive learning effect on students when conducted before implementation
of fi eld research (Miyamoto
2009
). It is urgent to introduce excursions in geography
education at elementary, junior high, and senior high school levels, to help students
foster perspectives in evaluating geographic phenomena.
The third task is to investigate the association between fi eld research and other
learning content. Shibusawa (
1998
) explains that geography can be learned by
5
For instance, Toriumi (
1990
) revealed that fi rst and second grade students could see geographic
phenomena only fragmentally in their observation from a school roof, whereas third and fourth
grade students could make comparisons between geographic phenomena and explain their spatial
relationships. Fifth and sixth grade students begin to recognize and explain geographic characteristics
by viewing the entire scene.
