Daily Geography Practice: Grade 6 Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this book to use in my 6th grade classroom in a middle school setting. For years I had been using a program called "Daily Oral Geography" and wanted to try something different. Overall, I like the material, but much of it is too easy for my students. There is not much opportunity for them to use the classroom atlases, which is a big plus with the other program. I plan to use this as a supplement to the "DOG" program I have been using. I don't really see it as a stand alone for regular geography lessons. I do like the alignment with the National Geography Standards and the use of National Geographic's 5 Themes of Geography.

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In Daily Geography Practice, Grade 6, 36 map lessons introduce basic geography skills and over 140 geography terms. What a perfect hands-on approach to geography instruction!\n\nThe geography skills presented at Grade 6 include:\n- globes\n- compass roses\n- map legends\n- map grids and indexes\n- absolute and relative location\n- map coordinates\n- map scales\n- physical country and continent maps \n- projections\n- regional maps\n- road and tourist maps\n- historical and cultural landmark maps\n- population and product maps\n- climate and time zone maps\n- land use, product, and resource maps\n- political country and world maps

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Farthest North (Modern Library Exploration) Review

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(More customer reviews)This review is in reference to the original two volume set of Nansen's "Farthest North" published in 1897. The Modern Library abridged edition is drawn from that set.
Nansen and 12 colleagues left Norway and sailed north in the Arctic Ocean above Siberia in 1893. Their purpose was to become frozen in the ice as it formed farther and farther south in the fall. Based on historical evidence from other attempts at far-north Arctic Ocean exploration, Nansen had decided that the flow of currents and winds in the Arctic Ocean were such that a frozen-in vessel that began above the Siberian Islands would drift northward with the ice across the North Pole over the next year or so. His goal therefore was to be the first to the North Pole. He planned for a expedition of as long as three years.
These Arctic explorers' ship was a specially designed vessel, the Fram. Her construction was such that when trapped in the frozen ice, which had extremely variable depths and especially pressures, the ship would rise up above the swelling pack ice and avoid being crushed. The success of the ship's design was absolutely spectacular. This should be compared to the fate of the Endurance, Shackleton's ship (described in his book "South"), which was trapped in the Antarctic ice and crushed, more that 17 years after Nansen's memoir was published.
Nansen's great success with sled dogs and sled designs published in the original memoir in 1897 adds credence to the relatively recent indictment (see Huntford) of the English Explorer Robert Scott who still disregarded the intense use of sled dogs in his 1910-12 Antarctic effort to reach the South Pole. Scott and four others basically die because of his ignorance/misunderstanding of the value of sled dogs, 15 years after Nansen details his successes with them on this expedition.
Fridtjof Nansen's writing style is clear, interesting, and very engaging. He was obviously a first-rate, experienced explorer (having crossed lower Greenland in 1888) and yet, at the same time, someone who recognized that there is something special going on around him. He documents-via journal entries-his daily observations and feelings about the physical conditions, the people, and even the sled dogs born during the adventure. There are records of supplies, food, ocean depths, temperatures, drift direction and distances, wind speed, ice thickness, bear attacks, a fantastic two-person trek by dog sled, and beautiful and sometimes emotional details of the aurora borealis. The original two volume set includes photographs and drawings made from photographs taken on the trip. Also a fine set of maps clearly showed the route of the expedition. Some of these must be included in the Modern Library's abridged version.
In comparison to the dry, guarded writing styles of Cherry-Garrard's "The Worst Journey in the World" or Shackleton's "South" this book is easier to read even though it too describes many terrifying situations and yet wonderful, hard-won successes. Nansen was just a better writer with more descriptive writing under his belt and possibly better initial plans for the book that would be produced from his experiences.
This book is a must for readers interested in polar exploration. Period.

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Daily Geography Practice Grade 5 Review

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(More customer reviews)I teach in a departmentalized elementary school. I use this book daily as a warm-up for the students when they enter my room. It has excellent skills and covers strategies that are used on standardized tests. I would highly recommend getting this book and using it in your classroom.

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In Daily Geography Practice, Grade 5, 36 map lessons introduce basic geography skills and over 100 geography terms. The geography skills presented at Grade 5 include: globes compass roses map legends map grids and coordinates map scales physical country and continent maps projections regional maps road and tourist maps historical and cultural landmark maps population and product maps climate and time zone maps land use, product, and resource maps political country and world maps Publisher: Evan-Moor 2004 Author: Sandi Johnson Grade: 5 Format: 196 pages, paperback ISBN: 9781557999740

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Physical Geography: A Self-Teaching Guide (Wiley Self-Teaching Guides) Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought the Kindle version of this book and the first thing I noticed is that the author book assumes an American readership and skews its examples accordingly. So if you're curious about Australia's weather patterns, for example, there's not much here.
For North Americans, this book is a good introduction to physical geography for kids about middle school age and up (Rose the Bat Lady notwithstanding, a kid doesn't have to be a super genius to absorb the material). The information given is clearly explained by a writer who respects young people's intelligence.
However, it does not have the sorts of colorful, super-entertaining illustrations that today's kids expect. Instead, it offers very simple black & white line drawings of the type one expects to find in much older books. So four stars instead of five because of visuals.
On the other hand, perhaps parents will be encouraged to do supplemental activities such as breaking out the family globe, a flashlight and a bowl of popcorn and demonstrating for their kids the basics of rotation, tilt, revolution and their effects on the sun's illumination of various points on the earth on various days of the year. I guarantee an evening spent this way would not only be great for the whole family but far more memorable than the hippest illustrations ever could be.

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Learn physical geography at your own paceWhat is atmospheric pressure?How does latitude indicate the type of climate a specific place will have?Where are volcanic eruptions or strong earthquakes most likely to occur?With Physical Geography: A Self-Teaching Guide, you’ll discover the answers to these questions and many more about the basics of how our planet operates.Veteran geography teacher Michael Craghan takes you on a guided tour of Earth’s surface, explaining our planet’s systems and cycles and their complex interactions step by step.From seasonal changes to coastal processes, from effluvial basins to deep sea fissures, Craghan puts the emphasis on comprehension of the topics.He also includes more than 100 specially commissioned illustrations and 50 photographs to help clarify difficult concepts.The clearly structured format of Physical Geography makes it fully accessible, providing an easily understood, comprehensive overview for everyone from the student to the amateur geographer to the hobbyist.Like all Self-Teaching Guides, Physical Geography allows you to build gradually on what you have learned–at your own pace.Questions and self-tests reinforce the information in each chapter and allow you to skip ahead or focus on specific areas of concern.Packed with useful, up-to-date information, this clear, concise volume is a valuable learning tool and reference source for anyone who wants to improve his or her understanding of physical geography.

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Flattening the Earth: Two Thousand Years of Map Projections Review

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(More customer reviews)About two months ago, I reviewed "Understanding Map Projections" by Melita Kennedy and Steve Kopp. While in certain minor ways this book falls short of Kennedy and Kopp's book, it is generally head and shoulders above it. And while it is true that Snyder's book is almost twice the price of Kennedy and Kopp's book, it is worth it. Other books of comparable value cost much more.
The only negative thing I really have to say about Snyder's book is that he tries to do two different things in it. This book is both a history and a survey of map projections, and what is appropriate for a history may not be best for a survey. In particular, it means that Snyder covers the various projections not in a sensible order (grouping similar types together), but chronologically. Projections popularized, say, in the 19th century are all covered in the same section.
I prefer the organization of Kennedy and Kopp's book, and I think the use of color in that book makes for a more attractive book. But my primary rating of a book on map projections is going to be based on three criteria: (1) Does it cover a large variety of different projections? (2) Does it give illustrations of what they look like? and (3) Does it give formulas or other information by which one can actually construct maps on the projections listed? This book ranks much higher than Kennedy and Kopp's on two of these three criteria (the first and last), and does not fall very far short of it on the remnaining one.
Over a hundred projections (actually, close to twice that many) are treated in this book, from familiar ones to novelty projections that never will be used in a serious atlas. And a large proportion of them are illustrated (though not all, and the ones that are do not use color as in the Kennedy & Kopp book) and either have the formulas for plotting them or are described in terms equivalent to giving formulas (By contrast the Kennedy-Kopp book has almost no formulas, and the descriptions do not allow you to produce them).
If you don't want to spend over $50, this is the one map projection book to buy.

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As long as there have been maps, cartographers have grappled with the impossibility of portraying the earth in two dimensions. To solve this problem mapmakers have created hundreds of map projections, mathematical methods for drawing the round earth on a flat surface. Yet of the hundreds of existing projections, and the infinite number that are theoretically possible, none is perfectly accurate. Flattening the Earth is the first detailed history of map projections since 1863. John P. Snyder discusses and illustrates the hundreds of known projections created from 500 B.C. to the present, emphasizing developments since the Renaissance and closing with a look at the variety of projections made possible by computers. The book contains 170 illustrations, including outline maps from original sources and modern computerized reconstructions. Though the text is not mathematically based, a few equations are included to permit the more technical reader to plot some projections. Tables summarize the features of nearly two hundred different projections and list those used in nineteenth-and twentieth-century atlases. "This book is unique and significant: a thorough, well-organized, and insightful history of map projections. Snyder is the world's foremost authority on the subject and a significant innovator in his own right."—Mark Monmonier, author of How to Lie with Maps and Mapping It Out: Expository Cartography for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

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Maps and Globes (Reading Rainbow Book) Review

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(More customer reviews)Colorful, fun way to introduce Map and Globe reading and understanding. It covers the history of maps, and uses. Advanced concepts like debth and elevatons are discussed. It looks at different uses maps have, and leaves the student wanting to discover more on their own. A very usful tool in teaching basic geography.

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Maps and globes can take you anywhere -- to the top of the tallest mountain on earth or the bottom of the deepest ocean. Maps tell you about the world: where various countries are located, where the jungles and deserts are, even how to find your way around your own hometown. If you take a fancy to any place on earth, you can go there today and still be home in time for dinner. So open a map, spin a globe. The wide world awaits you.

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