Understanding and using maps

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The setting for the card and card usage in later life is crucial during the school years marked. Every citizen is confronted with cartographic media over several school years and accordingly made familiar with the nature and use of these forms of representation of reality. This knowledge and ability (map competence) will enable the pupils to deal with cartographic representations outside of school and in later professional life, to use them for orientation and to acquire knowledge. Because maps and similar print media are the most concentrated records of geographical or spatial knowledge.

School work with maps

Card work in school comprises two areas of activity:

  1. Map understanding development
  2. Card usage.

Only understanding the map enables map use ; frequent card use deepens and broadens the understanding of the card. The card is the object of knowledge and a means of knowledge of the lesson.

The specifics of the cartographic form of representation of reality - the representation of reality by means of fixed signs ( signatures , symbols) - does not offer the viewer a visual-descriptive representation of the real phenomena (such as photographic landscape shots), but only the possibility under certain conditions To imagine reality with the help of a special key, the “map alphabet” (explanation of symbols, legend ). Using them to gain knowledge of territories requires special preparation in the classroom. Working on the card leads to working with the card. The use of the map as a spatial means of orientation and as a versatile source of information must be preceded by the acquisition of specialist knowledge about the nature, function and basic structure of a cartographic illustration.

Presentation of space by students

The development of spatial ideas among the students is based on two conceptual levels:

  • three-dimensional representation of space (see anaglyph map )
  • proportional planar room size concept.

The latter is promoted, for example, in series of scales of aerial photographs, plans and maps by respective detail markings and on regional maps and overview maps by equal-scale “comparison maps” of home areas (federal state, Federal Republic of Germany). The students' spatial ideas of the size proportions and the position of the continents are corrected by using the terrestrial globe , because only it, as a scaled-down replica of the spherical earth, can express the combined length, area and angle of its surface parts (land and sea distribution).

In addition to the general geographic base map, there are a number of thematic map types, including the history maps, which have only one topic or only a few selected structures or processes in the foreground of their representation. Each card type has its own character code, which the students must point out and familiarize with by using the legend (exercises!). The pupils always have to look carefully at the title and the basic structure of the legend. The individual symbols or signatures do not have to be learned, but the principle of representation of the individual card types should be memorized.

In general, any full card usage is characterized by the following steps:

  1. Orientation on the map sheet (topic, area, legend structure)
  2. Map reading (object location, characteristics of a location or a region)
  3. Evaluation of maps (connections, map comparisons, purpose, causes)
  4. Formulation of results (verbal, graphical, spatial-representational).

The main part in the development of map comprehension and in the handling of cartographic forms of representation (plans, maps, globes, etc.) as well as in the introduction of cartographic working methods (map orientation, map drawing, outline map work) are dealt with by specialist classes and geography classes; for other subjects - e.g. B. History, Social Studies and Social Studies - but similar or analogous forms of card work apply. Coordination between the respective subject teachers is recommended.

literature

  • Christina Böttcher: The menu. In: Hans-Jürgen Pandel , Gerhard Schneider (Hrsg.): Handbook of media in history lessons. Wochenschau-Verlag, Schwalbach / Ts. 1999, ISBN 3-87920-430-6 , ( Forum Historical Learning ), pp. 170-196.
  • Egon Breetz: Understanding and using maps in local history lessons. In: Rudolf Bauer (Hrsg.): Heimatkunde. For technical preparation for lessons, grades 1 to 4. Volk-und-Wissen-Verlag, (Ost-) Berlin 1987, pp. 275-295.
  • Josef Petrik: Bubenweisheit , manual for groups of young Catholic groups in Austria. (Orientation and map reading sections), 6th edition, Vienna 1960.
  • Armin Hüttermann (ed.): Problems of geographic map evaluation. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1981, ISBN 3-534-07977-9 , (= Paths of Research 404).
  • Armin Hüttermann: Map reading - (not) an art. = Didactics of geography. Munich 1998, ISBN 3-486-88036-5 .
  • Card work. Westermann, Braunschweig 1999, ( Praxis Geschichte 12, 1999, 4, ISSN  0933-5374 ), ( special issue ).
  • Walter Sperling: Child and Landscape. The child's geographical spatial image. Klett, Stuttgart 1965, ( Geography Lesson 5, ISSN  0014-0023 ).

See also