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 "position"

position

Every navigation technique-dead reckoning, sextant, Loran, transit satellite navigation, seafloor-based acoustic transponders, or GPS-requires thinking about how angles and/or distances change as a function of relative motions between objects. By knowing the positions of several objects (e.g., satellites, stars, seafloor acoustic transponders) in an frame of reference fixed onto the rotating Earth, the navigator can determine the unknown position of the object of interest.

Earth Science

Kastens and Ishikawa (2006)

Spatial thinking in the geosciences and cognitive sciences: A cross-disciplinary look at the intersection of two fields

position

In fine, it is apparent how simply and rapidly simple projective relations develop from topological relations as soon as they are organized according to coordinate points of view...Once the three topological dimensions arising from the relationships of order ('between') and enclosure are connected with a specific viewpoint they acquire a new significance (p 192).

Psychology

Piaget and Inhelder (1967)

The Child's Conception of Space