A Study On Scale Thought And Its Reflection In The Geography Textbooks

Scale thought is one of the main elements of geographic thinking, through the lens scale to observe and understand geographic matters, to analyze and solve the geographic problems. Geographic textbooks can reflect the level of scale thought. From one hand, it can directly relate to the recognition degree of teachers' understanding the scale thought; from other hand, it can affect the students on whether they can through the lens scale to recognize and appreciate the world or not. Thus, the explored questions about "What is the scale thought?" "How scale thought reflect in the geography textbooks?" can not only reflect its disciplinary essence, but also have significant theoretical and practical meaning.Literature method, comparison method and expert consultation method, are applied in this paper, through geographical literature review, international geography curriculum standards and expert consultation. making efforts to clear the main content of scale thought. Content analysis method is used to analyze the current situation of scale thought reflecting in the textbooks of China mainland, and then compared with the cases reflecting the scale thought in the textbooks of Hong Kong SAR and the Taiwan region, America, Singapore and Japan, at last summarized its enlightenment. Based on these, case analysis is employed to explore the basic strategy reflecting scale thought in the geography textbooks. The results are as followed:Based on the geography literature review, the content of scale thought was divided into six dimensions, including scale dividing, scale matching, scale coupling, scale effect, scale selection and scale reasoning, and then the content points of six dimensions were summarized. Observed from the international version, different scale dimensions were focused on the geography curriculum standards of "Geography Education International Charter", "Lucerne Declaration on Geographical Education for Sustainable Development" and the textbooks in the Unite States, Japan, America, Australia and Singapore, and the high frequencies were scale dividing, scale coupling and scale effect. Referenced to the results of expert evaluation, deciding to consider the scale dividing, scale coupling and scale effect as the subject of scale thought. After modified that subject based on the recommendations of the advisory expert opinions, the main content and at last analyzed its unique education value were formed eventually.By systematically studying the scale thought of present situation reflecting in People's education press and Hunan education press geography textbooks in mainland China, the varying scale thought reflected in the two versions textbooks were obtained and the advantages and disadvantages of scale thought of the content elements reflecting in the geography textbook in mainland China were summarized. Through the analysis of cases reflecting scale thought in the geography textbooks in Taiwan and the United States, Singapore, and Japan, its characteristics were summarized. Based on these, the enlightenment of geography textbooks content selection and its scale thought in the mainland China can be obtained. Based on the content reflecting scale thought in geography textbooks at home and abroad, the content points in geography textbooks appropriately reflecting scale dividing, scale coupling and scale effect were summed up at last.Two guidelines insisted should be highlighted when scale thought reflecting in the geography textbooks, that is, it is the application value of scale thought reflecting on the formation of students'core of geography literacy, and reflecting in scientific cognition and decision-making. Geography textbooks reflect an overall target in scale thought:introducing students to learn to use lens scale to aware of and appreciate the world. This objective can depend on classification of objectives to reach. Geography textbooks reflecting the scale thought should also comply with the guiding principles, scientific principles, benefit studied principles and progressive principle. The basic strategy of scale thought reflecting in geography textbooks can be determined from the content organization, selection and present in the geography textbooks. In the content organization, scale thought strategies include the scale balance strategy of region selection and reasonable allocation strategies of physical elements. In the content selection, scale thought strategies main focus on the clear purpose, focus content, seizing the key and reasonable distribution. In the content present, scale thought strategies can be reflected through the surface system of geography textbooks. Text system design strategies reflecting the scale thought include the total expression strategy and analogy expression strategies. Image system design strategies reflecting the scale thought include "nested" image design strategies and "link" image design strategy. Activity system design strategies reflecting the scale thought include activities design strategy of attempting to the different scale dividing, of analyzing the scales effect and of changing the scale analysis problem. Reading aid system design strategies reflecting the scale thought include home design strategies, etc. Four combined systems design strategies reflecting the scale thought include activities system and image system design strategies, etc.