Cartographic Visualization in teaching of Geography: Possibilities and applications from digital and interactive version of Municipal School Atlas of Ourinhos/SP in school environment
ISBN 978-85-88783-11-9
Authors
1Milena, A.P.M.; 2Zacharias, A.A.; 3Martins, T.J.
1UNESP Email: anamateucci@hotmail.com
2UNESP Email: andrea@ourinhos.unesp.br
3UNESP Email: tjm.geografia@gmail.com
Abstract
In Brazil, since 1998 with the National Curricular Parameters - NCP's, is showed the necessity of teaching of cartography as a way to prepare the student for the interpretations of the world (BRAZIL, 1998, p. 35), allied to this understanding of cartography school, the curriculum still place that it must be done in accordance with the present revolution that took in information and communication, in addition to working with local realities in order to approximate the student, who also became the face of all these new possibilities. Following these trends the larger project "The preparation of Municipal School Atlas of Ourinhos and The Training of Teachers and Tutors: proposed for the study of the locality” emerged. It aims to produce systematic and didactic material that enables the study of place, it all done: through four languages: analog, digital, interactive, visual and tactile. Since this research is devoted to the study of Atlas in digital form, this is based on the principle of Cartographic Visualization, which according MacEachren and Kraak* (1997, p. 336) is defined as the use of sophisticated computer technology to create visual presentations whose aim is to facilitate thinking and problem solving, in this perspective, the map becomes a visual analysis tool. With the general aim is to discuss, analyze, implement and review the possibilities of Cartographic Visualization to be developed in the classroom, and their incorporation into the Municipal School Atlas of Ourinhos in digital form, so it is proposed, the analysis of the effectiveness of View cartographic made through digital-interactive pages of the Atlas. Therefore, the research method is based on the foundation of Cartographic Visualization, also having the qualitative research proposed by Lüdke and André (1986) that considers two approaches: ethnographic research and case study. Since ethnographic research corresponds to a field study, which simply do not make assumptions, but you need a contact for that analysis to be truly effective. While the case study corresponds to a particular research interest, as we have here, with the development of digital pages of the atlas and its application in the classroom. The first application occurred in Municipal Elementary School "Professor Maria Adelaide Pedroso Racanello" located in the central region of Ourinhos/SP/Brazil in all rooms of 6th to 9th years of elementary school, thinking that the Atlas will be allocated to all schools of public education with the same level of schooling the audience of 17 classes analyzed served as a fairly significant sample. The rooms had an average of 25 students, the lab had an average of 20 computers running, so some students worked in pairs. The chosen page was about the Urban Development. The class featured a brief history of the development of the municipality of Ourinhos/SP, the main elements of the municipality, as the train tracks, rivers and crops of coffee early in its history, and currently the cane sugar. All these concepts and elements were worked in parallel to the issues of scale, geographical location and cartographic conventions. In general, the application was very effective, in questionnaire format after class, we assessed the content and work on the Atlas software itself, about the content, asked if they knew the history of the county, said yes: 6th years: 60%; 7th years: 45%; 8th years: 67%; 9th grade: 62%. As for software, questioned whether the digital-interactive atlas helped them to see how was the development of Ourinhos, said yes: 6th years: 76%; 7th years: 74%; 8th years: 74%; 9th years: 73% of students. *It is noteworthy that the authors use the term "Scientific Visualization" justifying that this terminology suggests greater possibilities, however, as the term most adept in Brazil, in this study we chose to adopt the terminology of "Cartographic Visualization"
Keywords
Cartographic Visualization; Scholar Cartography; Municipal School Atlas