METHODS OF GEOGRAPHY TEACHER ATLAS DESIGN

V.V. Molochko

SSPE "Kartographia"

admin@ukrmap.com.ua

Geography Teacher Atlas is a kind of cartography complex course of which includes the extended list of maps, methodical set in form of texts, tables, explanatory schemes and vocabulary containing terms.

The main stages of work on scientific design of Teacher’s Atlas are:

• The analysis of complex school atlases of similar purpose and contents published in the USSR and abroad made it possible to determine in general the structure of the Atlas planned for designing, as well as to draft the list of maps to analyze the methods of their setting and general design.
• The analysis and working up of school programs in Geography for secondary schools of general education and high school in force in Ukraine now allowed not only to define the thematic contents of the Atlas and find cartographic topics of current importance but also determine the integral interconnection of separate subjects, geographic as well as related to Geography.
• The structure and contents of the Atlas are finally determined on the basis of the built structural graphic model of information representation by certain territorial levels. It helped to solve the problem of systematic regulation of the maps contents and maps groups, to define the thematic composition of maps and their place with regard to each other in the framework of their certain system.
• For the assessment of the cartographic products quality we conducted marketing research, the focus group of which were experts-users (Geography teachers of schools, lyceums, colleges, teachers training universities). On the basis of this research results the main features of the Atlas were defined more exactly, and that was aimed at providing correspondence of the contents and the purpose of the Atlas to specific requirements of the cartographic products users.
• All the above mentioned processes made it possible to compose a list of maps necessary for the provision of teaching process in educational institutions of general education and to create the Atlas assembly model.

Geography Teacher Atlas contains maps representing the world as a whole, maps of continents and oceans, maps of countries in groups or apart, and maps of Ukraine. New thematic maps were included to each part of the Atlas, such as formation of a political map and of international organizations; the potential of natural resources, external economic links between countries of the world and Ukraine; global problems of humanity, etc.