In this article, we argue that when complex sociopolitical issues such as ethnocentrism and racial segregation are represented as complex, emergent systems using agent-based computational models (in short agent-based models or ABMs), discourse about these representations can disrupt social studies teacher candidates' dispositions of teaching…

''Agriculture, Food, and Rural Land Use" constitutes a major part of the AP Human Geography course outline. This article explores challenging topics to teach, emerging research trends in agricultural geography, and sample teaching approaches for concretizing abstract topics. It addresses content identified as "essential knowledge"…

In this study, views of students about the applicability of the digital documentary production through fieldwork model and the effect of it on their problem-solving skills were examined. The study was conducted in Turkey, in 2016-2017 spring term with 15 geography teacher candidates who chosen by convenience sampling method. In this study, within…

This article provides a brief overview of the March 2014 workshop that the authors organized with approximately thirty pre-and in-service teachers from around the state of Virginia. The authors' broad focus in this workshop was the connection between race and the cultural landscape in Virginia. The goals were relatively simple: to get teachers and…

In this article the author describes how she teaches third and sixth grade classes about the six essential elements of geography at the beginning of each school year. The six elements organize the eighteen national standards and include: the world in spatial terms, places and regions, physical systems, human systems, environment and society, and…

American history demands to be mapped. The stories of exploration, the colonies, the Louisiana Purchase, and so on are incomplete without maps to locate historical places, events, and conflicts. Yet maps can do more for the history teacher than simply illustrating what happened where or what territory was acquired when. Maps also provide clues…

Teaching AP Human Geography to freshmen seems like a daunting task and while there are many arguments both for and against offering the course to freshmen, for many teachers it is reality. In this article, the author offers nine tips to help high school freshmen be successful in the course and on the AP exam.

This article describes experiential-learning approaches to conveying the work and rewards involved in qualitative research. Seminar students interviewed one another, transcribed or took notes on those interviews, shared those materials to create a set of empirical materials for coding, developed coding schemes, and coded the materials using those…

The challenge of teaching AP Human Geography to high school students is to make geography relevant, engaging and "real world." Often the pace of teaching AP classes constrains the ability of teachers to do creative projects and truly engage students until after the exam is over in May. In this lesson plan, the author suggests using "Petites…

Despite wars, natural disasters, fears of epidemics and pandemics, and other catastrophic events that are vividly featured in media outlets, the world's population continues to rise. In fact, the world recently passed another demographic milestone: a human population of 7 billion people. The number of people on Earth has tripled since around 1930,…

There is a growing body of work in geography and sociology on the impact of drones on warfare, surveillance and civil protest. This paper assesses the challenges of using drones for teaching human geography and spatial social sciences. Affordable and expensive drones are now available in the market place; however, there has been next to no…

This study contributes to the debate over the potential of film as a pedagogical aid. It argues that integrating film production into the assessment of undergraduate modules secures advantages for student learning: students connect their ideas more explicitly to "real world" examples; new voices and understandings are introduced to…

Chinatowns are familiar emblems of "Chineseness" in many countries and are among the most visible and tangible spatial manifestations of Chinese migration. Large and well-established Chinatowns can be found in diverse locales, including New York, San Francisco, Vancouver, Paris, Sydney, and Singapore. Despite sharing numerous easily…

The processes and implications of urban growth are studied in a variety of disciplines as urban growth affects both the physical and human landscape. Remote sensing methods provide ways to visualize and mathematically represent urban growth; and resultant land cover change data enable both quantitative and qualitative analysis. This article helps…

In this article, the author examines Makiguchi Tsunesaburo's philosophy and practice of human geography ("jinsei chirigaku"), community studies ("kyodoka"), and composition instruction based on "value-creating pedagogy" ("soka kyoikugaku") for thinking through and responding to two competing trends…