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 "distribution"

areal association

Measure degree of similarity between point, line, or area distributions (p. 698)

Geography

Marsh, et al. (2008)

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

distribution

A particular subdivision of the global set [of occurrences] according to a well-specified criterion is called a distribution....A spatial distribution [is]...one in which the critical criterion for inclusion or exclusion from a set is location (p. 35-36). Golledge defines properties of distributions, including boundary, density, dispersion, pattern, and shape (p. 36-38)

Geography

Golledge (1995)

Primitives of Spatial Knowledge

distribution

The greater part of these data (of persons, facilities and material resources (goods, energy, wastes, etc.)) can be recorded as a spatial distribution by assignment ot small subdivisions of a settlement area (p 354). Quantities and types can be transmuted into dot distributions, patchwork patterns, or contoured surfaces. Ratios between measures in the same square can be computed...(p 355).

Design (urban, architecture)
Architecture

Lynch (1984)

Good City Form

distribution

[OED]: 3. a. The orderly dividing of a mass or collective body into parts with distinctive characters or functions; the orderly arrangement of the parts into which any whole is divided; division and arrangement; classification.; 3. c. Statistics. The way in which a particular measurement or characteristic is spread over the members of a class.

Linguistics

OED Online (2nd Ed.)

Oxford English Dictionary, Online Edition