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 "navigation"

arrangement

Recognize (plan) a path between an origin and destination (p. 698)

Geography

Marsh, et al. (2008)

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

navigation

Coding distances and directions of movement, using information from vestibular, kinaesthetic, and visual sources, is a powerful system of viewer-centered spatial coding, often called dead reckoning or inertial navigation (p 19). Human updating of spatial coding on the basis of movement appears to take place in a relatively automatic and effortless way (p 20)....people use maps to plan routes and to find their way...[several researchers] have found that children as young as 4 years benefit from maps and can use them to guide navigation in a simple situation (p 167).

Psychology

Newcombe and Huttenlocher (2000)

Making Space