Research On The Cultivation Of Middle School Students' Geographical Thinking Ability Based On

Nowadays, thinking is the source of social progress and development. In the stage of secondary education, the way to think and study also should be stressed apart from improving students’knowledge skills and emotional attitude. As a basic discipline for modern education, geography plays an important role in enriching students’knowledge of geography and developing their related basic skills. Being the essence of the subject of geography, geographical thinking is of great significance to learn the discipline. However, the present cultivation on geographical thinking mainly depends on teacher’s selection of their teaching content, method and process rather than the exploration of geographical thing by students themselves. In fact, GIS(Geographical Information System) is a kind of information technology with an emphasis on operation ability. Owing to its huge data volume and powerful functions such as visualization, spatial analysis and electronic map, GIS enjoys unparalleled advantages over other traditional methods in developing students’geographical thinking. Therefore, it’s quite necessary to study how to cultivate the geographical thinking of students by use of GIS.By means of literature-reviewing, experts-consulting and social practice, the paper illustrates in details the research background, meaning and status of the issue as well as the theoretical foundation of developing geographical thinking through GIS. The paper, by integrating the characteristics of GIS, geography and secondary school geography, also elaborates the basic content and advantages of geographical thinking which consists of developing comprehensive, regional, imaginal and spatial thinking of geography on the basis of GIS. Moreover, in accordance with the principle of simplicity and availability, the author selects some typical and acceptant teaching cases to diversify models of students’geographical thinking development with the support of GIS.