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 "region"

neighborhood and region

Drawing inferences from spatial context . Understanding the situations and neighborhoods of places. Definitions of neighborhood based on the spatial behavior of humans and other organisms. Formal and functional regions and concepts of territory.

Social Science

Janelle and Goodchild (2011)

Concepts, Principles, Tools, and Challenges in Spatially Integrated Social Science

region

What nearby places are similar to this one? (p. 104); Sizable area with generally similar conditions (formal region) or internal connections that link it together (functional region (p. 273)

Geography

Gersmehl (2005)

Teaching geography

region

Topic CF5-7.

Geography
Education

DiBiase, et al. (2006)

Geographic Information Science and Technology Body of Knowledge

region

A region is a group of adjacent locations that have similar conditions or connections. For example, the Corn Belt is a region where people grow corn. Bengal is a region where people speak Bengali. The Atlanta commutershed is the region where a sizeable fraction of people commute to work in Atlanta. The process of regionalization is basically a form of classification, with an explicitly spatial dimension-the mind searches for places that have something in common and are located adjacent (or at least close) to each other...(p. 185, see source for more)

Geography

Gersmehl and Gersmehl (2007)

Spatial thinking by young children. Neurologic evidence for early development and "educability"

region

People form long-term representations of areas, but long-term knowledge of specific spaces may vary considerably in completeness (p 14). People...code location in terms of distance and direction information within a region, taking its shape and edges as a frame of reference (p 17).

Psychology

Newcombe and Huttenlocher (2000)

Making Space