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 "part"

part

Although objects have many features, parts constitute the features most diagnostic of the basic level of categorization (p 3). Parts may be critical to the basic level because they form a link from perception or appearance of an object to its function (p 4). Mental representations of the space of the body reflect the functions of the body parts (p 6).

Psychology

Tversky (2005)

Functional Significance of Visuospatial Representations

part-whole

...psychological/neurological research...indicates that perceptual wholes are built up from parts-based representations. Furthermore, there is a separation in perceiving parts of shapes and relationships between parts, and there is a separation in perceiving global or local features of shapes (p 858)....students first attend to whole shapes; ...students often notice parts of shapes, but not relationships between parts; students (then) shift from focusing on wholes to focusing on relationships between parts...(p 858).

Mathematics

Battista (2007)

The Development of Geometric and Spatial Thinking

units

The components of systems that cannot be reduced to smaller subunits and retain their identity and role. Examples include atoms and the fundamental subatomic particles, photons and quanta, bits and pixels in information streams and representations, cells in all organisms, and the codon and gene in genetics.

Science Education

Mathewson, J. H. (2005)

The visual core of science: definition and applications to education