Norman C. Bettis

Parallels and Shadows: Where Are We?.

Abstract Designed for use with junior and senior high school students, this lesson provides teachers of physical geography, earth science, and social studies with a strategy that involves students in using higher order thinking skills in a cooperative learning format to solve a hypothetical problem that requires them to use their knowledge of earth-sun relationships, absolute location, and place. Students find the problem-solving approach interesting and challenging, and teachers readily identify with the themes of location and place. A knowledge of earth-sun relationships, latitude and longitude, and the characteristics of different places is critical for understanding events, both human and physical, that occur on earth. This lesson can be used at the end of a unit on earth-sun relationships in the physical geography component of a world geography course or near the end of a unit on the solar system in earth science. It could also be used at the end of a unit on maps and globes. Because this content kno...