Teaching spatial thinking with the national atlas of korea: a valuable resource for advanced placement human geography

Summary

This article introduces the second edition of The National Atlas of Korea, published in December 2014 by the National Geographic Information Institute (NGII) of South Korea, and explores its value as a resource for teaching Advanced Placement Human Geography (APHG) in the United States. The article begins by outlining the atlas's publication background and accessibility, noting that it comprehensively presents South Korea's geography and its social, economic, political, global, and historical attributes, and also includes unique and otherwise unavailable demographic, urbanization, and economic data about North Korea. The atlas is organized into five chapters covering territory, government and local autonomy, transformation and development of the land, Korea in the world, and maps of Korea. The third chapter is highlighted as the core for geography and social studies instruction, detailing South Korea's planning and development since the 1953 armistice, with a wealth of single-variable, bivariate, and multivariate maps that serve as a treasure trove for APHG curricula. The central focus of the article is on how to effectively use these maps in the classroom to cultivate spatial thinking skills. The authors distinguish between map reading (extracting information) and map analysis (visualizing patterns and posing new questions), and elaborate on several key techniques of spatial thinking, including visualization and pattern recognition, asking "what if" questions, analyzing geographic attributes, establishing spatial associations, and generating hypotheses. Using specific map examples, such as the growth of commuters in the Capital Region, the article demonstrates how to guide students in recognizing patterns, asking "why" questions, and conducting further spatial analysis and hypothesis generation. The article concludes by emphasizing the atlas's immense teaching value, mentioning the accompanying curriculum articulation document, and underscoring that the atlas is freely downloadable, making it an indispensable resource for U.S. geography and social studies teachers.