Kindergarten Geography: Teaching Diversity to Young People

Abstract

A Southern Poverty Law Center grant enabled purchasing dolls representing children of different races, ethnicity, and condition of disability. The teacher used these with other materials to sensitize kindergarten children to human differences. She directed them to cut pictures from National Geographic Magazine showing people who are “somehow different/' Responses from children were classified. Nine commented on adornment, three on household setting, two on occupation, and one on race. Little research exists on teaching geography to kindergarteners except on the ability to read maps. The authors contend that kindergarteners are quite ready to learn about regional differences among human populations.     

Södra Finlands blocksänkor

Söderman, G.: Södra Finlands blocksänkor. Geografisk Tidsskrift, 82, 77–81, November 1. 1982.

Map analysis and field inventory show that there are about 20000 boulder depressions in Finland south of 64°N. The features are most common in blocky till areas close to fracture zones in the bedrock. The depressions range in altitude from above the highest shore-line down to 25–30 m above present sea-level. They are youngest in the NW part. Some depressions show surface patterns.

SAMMANDRAG

Blocksänkor är frostmarksformer med en huvudsakligen vertikal sortering som ett resultat av differentiell uppfrysning av blockrikt utgångsmaterial. De framställer inga klimatiska kriteria om utbildningstid och -förhållanden. Däremot här de till områden med sasängbetonad frostaktivitet, och om ej inskränkta till nedisade omräden, trots typiska fär dessa. Blocksänkorna är den mest utbredda och största frostmarksform inom den fennoskandiska skogsregionen i dag.     

基于陆路交通网的空间通达性分析——以兰州-西宁城市区域为例

以兰州-西宁城市区域交通路网为例,基于空间句法模型、日常可达性模型和等时圈通过特征点算法,试图运用GIS技术将节点、轴线和域面结合起来对通达性进行全面阐述,多视角综合测度区域路网通达性的空间格局。研究结果表明:1.区域路网体系较为完善,路网线段集聚相对明显;线段式空间伸展格局呈"点-轴"状,轴线式空间伸展格局呈"干-枝"状,初步形成核心、过渡、外围三大等级圈层以及"X"字型路网骨架,区域交通运输与城镇发展水平表现出较强的共轭协同发展关系。2.等时圈沿国道、省道、县道扩散表现连续,沿封闭铁路、高速公路扩散出现跳跃,其等时圈空间特征多呈现"枝-叶"状。城镇日常可达性在较大程度上取决于区域中心性、周边路网发达程度和城镇密集程度,区域路网单中心极化现象比较明显,兰州市对整个区域路网的控制作用较为突出。3.区域通达度空间分布各异,核心板块破碎而外围板块连片。区域通达性差异极其显著,出现极高值区和极低值区;兰州与西宁通达度中高值区出现断裂,区域南部通达度极低值区连片成带。因此,应当构建兰州地区绕城高速和环状路网,实现路网交通的适度分流;加快兰州-西宁高等级快速交通建设,推进兰州-西宁区域一体化进程;建设兰成铁路和兰州至云南磨憨口岸高速通道,培育临夏为南部区域性中心城市。     

闲暇时间约束对中山陵景区国内客源市场空间结构的影响

闲暇时间是旅游需求得以实现的必要条件之一,居民闲暇时间的变化必然对旅游地客源市场空间结构产生影响。选择"五一"小长假、"十一"黄金周及暑假3类6个不同闲暇时长的时段,基于现场问卷调研,使用客源地地理集中指数、客源吸引半径、距离衰减曲线及引力模型研究闲暇时间约束对南京市中山陵景区客源市场空间结构的影响,发现随着假日时长的增加,居民出游距离受闲暇时间的约束降低,从而旅游地客源吸引半径增大,客源地集中指数降低、距离衰减曲线变缓、距离衰减指数降低。研究结果表明,在不同时长的闲暇时间约束下,距离因素对景区客流量的影响最大,其次为收入(客源地人均地区生产总值),而客源地人口规模因素的影响最小。     

Spatial Thinking Concepts in Early Grade-Level Geography Standards

ABSTRACT

Research in the cognition and learning sciences has demonstrated that the human brain contains basic structures whose functions are to perform a variety of specific spatial reasoning tasks and that children are capable of learning basic spatial concepts at an early age. There has been a call from within geography to recognize research on spatial cognition in a meaningful way in primary school curriculum. This article utilizes the spatial thinking taxonomy proposed by Gersmehl and Gersmehl (2006) to examine to the extent to which spatial thinking concepts are being practiced in U.S. schools. The National Geography Standards and forty-nine state social studies or geography standards are examined. Using standards as a measure of geography content, it is concluded that while some of spatial thinking concepts appear often in curriculum, others are largely absent. Designing geography standards that address the findings of spatial cognition research may serve as a means of improving geography instruction.     

Watermarking of digital geospatial datasets: a review of technical,legal and copyright issues

Gathering data accounts for more than 80% of the cost of any GIS project. Fast Internet connections and digital datasets threaten the investments of data producers through data piracy. Outside the GIS community this problem has been known for a long time, and possible solutions exist for digital imagery, formatted text, 3D meshes and so on, showing possible links to typical spatial data. This is largely achieved through embedding hidden information in a dataset without producing perceptible changes in the data, a process known as watermarking. The producer can recover the embedded information on request in order to produce evidence of ownership in a court, so the overall strategy relies on a legal basis rather than technical ones. This paper analyses the state-of-the-art for watermarking protection in digital geographical datasets. Digital imagery is demonstrably a more mature area than geographical information, even with multiple commercial vendors offering watermarking protection. 2D vector and point datasets have received less attention from the research community; however, 3D meshes have been considered by the CAD community and a handful of techniques are available for that case, and they are reviewed here.     

Constructing personalized transportation networks in multi-state supernetworks: a heuristic approach

An integrated view encompassing the networks for public and private transport modes as well as the activity programs of travelers is essential for accessibility analysis. In earlier research, the multi-state supernetwork has been put forward by the authors as a suitable technique to model the system in such an integrated fashion. An essential part of a supernetwork involving multi-modal and multi-activity is the personalized transportation network, which is an under-researched topic in the academic community. This article attempts to develop a heuristic approach to construct personalized transportation networks for an individual's activity program. In this approach, the personalized network consists of two types of network extractions from the original transportation system: public transport network and private vehicle network. Three examples are presented to illustrate that the public transport network and private vehicle network can represent an individual's attributes and be applied in large-scale applications for analyzing the synchronization of land-use and transportation systems.     

Statistics-based outlier detection for wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor network (WSN) applications require efficient, accurate and timely data analysis in order to facilitate (near) real-time critical decision-making and situation awareness. Accurate analysis and decision-making relies on the quality of WSN data as well as on the additional information and context. Raw observations collected from sensor nodes, however, may have low data quality and reliability due to limited WSN resources and harsh deployment environments. This article addresses the quality of WSN data focusing on outlier detection. These are defined as observations that do not conform to the expected behaviour of the data. The developed methodology is based on time-series analysis and geostatistics. Experiments with a real data set from the Swiss Alps showed that the developed methodology accurately detected outliers in WSN data taking advantage of their spatial and temporal correlations. It is concluded that the incorporation of tools for outlier detection in WSNs can be based on current statistical methodology. This provides a usable and important tool in a novel scientific field.     

LOCATING EMPLOYMENT GROWTH IN URBAN AREAS TO MINIMIZE TRAVEL TIME

The transportation requirements of an urban area are, in part, a function of its land use pattern. Reducing travel in an urban area by effective land use design appears to be a worthwhile public policy objective. The planning model derived in this article uses as its core the matrix version of the Lowry model developed by Garin. The model allocates basic employment to the zones of an urban area in order to minimize work and service trips. A hypothetical planning problem for Metropolitan Toronto illustrates use of the model.