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 "order"

arrangement

[OED]: 4. concr. A structure or combination of things arranged in a particular way or for any purpose

Linguistics

OED Online (2nd Ed.)

Oxford English Dictionary, Online Edition

order

(or spatial succession). an essential relationship...established when two neighboring though separate elements are ranged one before the other (p 7). In the perceptual realm there is one relation in particular, of which order contitutes a fundamental part. This is the relation of symmetry, represented in the simplest case by the double order -- CBA/ABC -- whose role is well known in the construction of 'good configurations'...such as a face (p 7-8).

Psychology

Piaget and Inhelder (1967)

The Child's Conception of Space

ordering

A sequence (or series) of discrete categories or components that vary according to some algorithm, criterion or rule. An ordered array is systematic,not random or chaotic. Information is generated, transmitted and recorded in ordered patterns, i.e. it 'makes sense' versus non-sense. For example the sequence of purine and pyrimidine base in a sample DNA carries the information for the construction, operation and maintenance of an organism.

Science Education

Mathewson, J. H. (2005)

The visual core of science: definition and applications to education