Spatial Thinking in High-School Education: A Comparative Analysis of Transnational Geography Textbooks- A Case Study of the Climate

空間思考是一個新的全球教育趨勢。從美國National Research Council (NRC)2006年在Learning to Think Spatially提出空間思考的重要性之後，空間思考教育逐漸受到重視。地理學為一門空間科學，亦應重視空間思考的研究。 教科書是教學過程不可或缺的教材之一，其中美國學者已針對空間思考概念進行高中、大學教科書的分析，但除了美國之外，其他國家所進行教科書相關研究有限，因此本研究將針對高中教科書的部分進行跨國分析。透過檢視教科書的課文文字及呈現工具來看教科書中的空間概念使用以及探討教科書中的學生活動所涉及到的空間思考內涵，以了解目前教科書在撰寫氣候單元時，如何透過文字與呈現工具表達空間概念及設計具有空間思考內涵的學生活動。 本研究以臺灣、中國、日本及英國高中地理教科書作為研究對象，然而不同國家的地理章節不盡相同，因此本研究考量氣候章節為後續通論地理章節的基礎知識且為區域地理重要概念之一，再加上氣候章節的知識隱含有許多空間上的內容，如行星風系、鋒面等，因此本研究以氣候章節進行分析。 研究結果發現各版本教科書在氣候單元已有超過50%的段落文字及呈現工具具有空間概念。在學生活動設計上，亦有檢視學生空間思考的內涵存在。在氣候的每個主題解釋背後的機制與原因時，各版本多利用方向、移動等概念進行解釋。因此在教材編寫上，可留意將方向及移動等概念在內文中突顯出來，亦可參考其他版本在同樣主題運用哪些空間概念解釋說明。在教學現場中，教師能夠多留意方向及移動等空間概念如何解釋氣候現象、問題的背後機制與原因，亦可多鼓勵學生嘗試以空間概念思考氣候相關的空間問題。 本研究的成果所提供的資料是許多後續研究的基礎，具有廣泛的應用價值，在研究過程中整理出各版本空間思考概念的呈現方式等，將可以提供地理學者、相關教育工作者作為一個研究參考。Spatial thinking is a new trend about global education. In 2006, National Research Council (NRC) stressed the importance of spatial thinking skills in Learning to Think Spatially, research on the education of spatial thinking gradually increased thereafter. As a spatial science, geography should emphasize more on the importance of spatial thinking. Textbook is one of the indispensable materials during teaching process.American scholars have studied the integration of spatial thinking in high school and college textbooks, but except America, related studies in other countries are very limited. As a result, this thesis conducts a cross-country analysis of high school geography textbooks. In order to understand how the editors present the concept of spatial thinking and design students’ activities in the chapter of climate, this study tried hard to examine the words and the illustrations which are presented in the textbooks. In this paper, high school textbooks of Taiwan, China, Japan and England are chosen to be the study objects. Yet, the chapters among these countries’ textbooks are not exactly the same. Since the concepts of climate are the basic knowledge of general theory of Geography and it is also one of the most important concept in regional geography, and the content of the chapter, climate, implies a lot of spatial thinking, such as the planetary wind system and frontal surface. Therefore, climate became the case study in this paper. The finding shows that the concept of spatial thinking has been presented in over 50% content of each version of textbooks. Besides, the designs of students’ activities in the textbooks can examine students’ abilities of spatial thinking. Most of them use the concepts of directions or movements to explain the fundamental principles of climat. Therefore, editors can pay more attention on highlighting the concepts of directions and movements in the textbooks, or observe carefully how other versions explain the same concepts of climate. In class, teachers should notice how the fundamental principles of climate are explained by the concepts of directions and movements. They can also encourage students to use spatial thinking to think about the spatial issues in climate.The result of this study provided an abundance of valuable information for the subsequent researches. Geographic scholars or educators can refer to the ways of presenting spatial thinking in different version of textbooks which were put into order during this study