Teaching the Six Essential Elements of Geography with Quality Children's Literature

In this article the author describes how she teaches third and sixth grade classes about the six essential elements of geography at the beginning of each school year. The six elements organize the eighteen national standards and include: the world in spatial terms, places and regions, physical systems, human systems, environment and society, and the uses of geography. The purpose for teaching this lesson is for students to learn to use the elements to help them study the world and organize their ideas. The elements come from "Geography for Life" (Boehm and Bednarz 1994), which was first published in 1994 by the Geography Education National Implementation Project (GENIP). The second edition was released in 2012 (Heffron and Downs 2012). "Geography for Life" includes three major components: geographic perspectives, knowledge, and skills.