If vision can be considered the basis of geographic inquiry, then it must involve looking with discrimination--the ability to discern clues in our surroundings that speak to spatial processes or patterns in all aspects of geography--physical, cultural, economic, and so on. Geographic thinking also involves making spatial generalizations. We do…

In this article, the author responds to a teacher's request for advice on how to handle one 4-year-old child in her class who cannot seem to focus on tasks and activities. The author provides some suggestions on how to work with one or more children who are easily distracted. The author points out that one of the most important life skills is the…

This article describes how a series of lessons might be used to allow students to discover the size of the Earth, the distance to the Moon, the size of the Moon, and the altitude of Mount Piton on the Moon. Measurement with a sextant, principles of geometry and trigonometry, and historically important scientists and mathematicians are discussed.

The Name Game activity that raises challenging mathematical questions is used to explore random permutations. A permutation of a set is an arrangement of the elements in some order.

The activities in the guide will help you connect the suggestions and strategies in "Classroom Instruction from A to Z" to your real-life teaching experiences. For each of the 26 chapters in the book, you will find a series of three activities that will help you reflect on your current practices. They ask you to ACT now and turn your classroom…

In this article, the author discusses a five-month interdisciplinary bird study that she designed for her seventh-grade students that combines life science, technology, writing, art, mathematics, social studies and literature. The driving force behind this yearly unit is the BirdSleuth eBird program (formerly the Cornell University Classroom…

This article discusses a class project on residential segregation in Florida's metropolitan areas for which students analyzed trends regarding African Americans relative to white populations using data from 1980 to 2000. The project provided a means of teaching the importance of geographical perspectives to nongeography students in an…

In this article, the authors describe steps on how to develop a high-impact activity in which students build, test, and improve their own "coffee can" speakers to observe firsthand how loudspeakers work to convert electrical energy to sound. The activity is appropriate for students in grades three to six and lends itself best to students…

In this questions and answer interview with Rachel Dickinson, author of "Great Pioneer Projects You Can Build Yourself", the writer discusses her interest in the American pioneer movement, her research, and her goals in introducing readers to the day-to-day life of an American pioneer. Dickinson's book offers a hands-on look at what life…

Is 30 minutes of outdoor time in a six and a half hour school day really enough? According to child advocacy expert and author Richard Louv, 30 minutes isn't nearly enough. In his book "Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder," he discusses the events which have led our culture to move indoors and the…

This paper discusses the extent to which both crosslinguistic and intralingual differences may be considered as factors causing errors committed by Malay learners in the acquisition of the present perfect which has been identified as an area of considerable difficulty in the learning of English grammar. Using elicitation procedures that probe into…

Second language tasks are often described as classroom activities that promote greater student participation, yet many studies only discuss participation in aggregates, such as total turns at talk or total words per turn. The aim here is to demonstrate that a qualitative inquiry into tasks can equally reveal important participatory and…

Teaching and studying the Holocaust is a complex and sensitive undertaking. The dynamics of dealing with a modern, technologically advanced state's attempt to annihilate all members of a given group of people for racial reasons involves tortuous twists and turns that challenge the most sophisticated of thinkers, leading to a situation in which…

This study explored the effect of fine motor skill activities on the development of attention in kindergarteners (n = 68) in five classes at a suburban public school in the Intermountain West through a pretest/posttest experimental group (n = 36) control group (n = 32) design. All children received the regular curriculum which included typical…

Meanings of "surprise" are wide and include uplifting and engaging facets like wonder and amazement on the one hand as well as ones that may be of the opposite nature like interruption and disrupt on the other. Pedagogically, educators who use surprise in class activities are focusing on students being "taken aback" by a situation, hopefully…