The use of cartographic representations in geography teaching materials in elementary school: A descriptive analysis

Abstract

Since its emergence, Geographic science has a strong relationship with school education, which is the greatest contact of the general population with this domain of knowledge. Thus, it is accepted that School Geography has a strategic position in the way that Geography is understood and reproduced in our society, this also includes the use of cartographic representations and also the transmission of these ideas through didactic materials that are part of the school routine. Based on this issue, the present article is the result of a research carried out during the first semester of 2020 as part of the activities of the teaching laboratory at UFMT Campus Aaraguaia, the study conducted proceeded a quantitative research and a qualitative analysis of how maps are presented by different Geography publications used in the 6th year of Elementary School. For this purpose, It was verified the follow criteria in different books adopted in teaching geography: the proportion between maps and pages, the teaching context with which map were presented in the publication, the size of the included representations, their scale and finally their relationship with the contents covered. For this study, 3 collections of Geography approved by the PNLD were chosen and their results show that the 3 collections showed significant differences in most of the parameters analyzed based mainly on differences in the editorial standards established in each of the included proposals and even though these parameters in general are not taken into account in the choice of teaching materials made by schools and by teachers in Brazilian public schools. It is also noteworthy that cartographic communication has great importance and space in the teaching of Geography, thus claiming greater importance within the publications of current teaching materials.