Spatial Concept Perspectives

We have gathered ~300 excerpts from published works about fundamental spatial concept terms. These have been cross-referenced with the concept lexicon appearing on the left. Those terms were drawn from the U.S.National Science Education Standards (NSES 1996) for topic areas B - Physical Science, C - Life Science, D - Earth and Space Science, as well as from the 1994 U.S. Geography Teaching Standards for grades 9-12. Those standards can be browsed here.

spatial concept terms

disciplinary perspectives on "coordinates"

coordinate

Develop an areal referencing procedure (p. 698)

Geography

Marsh, et al. (2008)

Geospatial Concept Understanding and Recognition in G6-College Students: A Preliminary Argument for Minimal GIS

coordinate

[OED]: 2. Math.  a. Each of a system of two or more magnitudes used to define the position of a point, line, or plane, by reference to a fixed system of lines, points, etc. (Usually in pl.)

Linguistics

OED Online (2nd Ed.)

Oxford English Dictionary, Online Edition

coordinate system

Locating objects in space is a critical process in geometry and everyday life. Geometry formalizes this process through the use of coordinate systems (p 889). Students are exposed to two different types of "coordinate-system" conceptualizations, maps and Cartesian coordinate systems. Maps utilize nonmetric ordinal coordinates to specify locations: labels on axes signify ordered locations without metric relationships.

Mathematics

Battista (2007)

The Development of Geometric and Spatial Thinking

coordinates

[OED]: 2. Math. a. Each of a system of two or more magnitudes used to define the position of a point, line, or plane, by reference to a fixed system of lines, points, etc. (Usually in pl.)

Linguistics

OED Online (2nd Ed.)

Oxford English Dictionary, Online Edition