This thesis studied the relationship between current event knowledge and the ability to construct a mental map of the world. It was hypothesized that participates with more current event knowledge would demonstrate better mental mapping abilities. The study was designed using two activities recommended for 12th graders by Geography for Life, National Geography Standards 1994, and the theory of spatial familiarity (Kitchen, 1994b; Gale et al., 1990, Golledge & Spector, 1978). One hundred-twenty eight students drawn from two courses offered at Virginia Tech completed a participant profile questionnaire, a current event quiz, drew a map of the world outlining the seven continents, and located and labeled 27 cities on a world map. Using ATLAS GIS the sketch maps and place locations were digitally transformed and scored for accuracy. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze current event knowledge, place location ability, and sketch mapping ability. Using Spearman rank correlation, the relationship between current event knowledge and mental mapping abilities was assessed at a number of levels. Results indicate that participants with a stronger understanding of current events tended to create a more accurate mental map of the world. That is, place location accuracy and drawing accuracy correlated with current event knowledge. However, similar to previous research (Cross, 1987; Helgren, 1983; Muller, 1985) place location knowledge outside of North America and Western Europe was poor. The results of this thesis offer baseline data that can be used for future research to study the effectiveness of the national standards set forth in Geography for Life. / Master of Science

Popular geography magazines like National Geographic (NG) provide readers with a lens of the world around them. Yet sadly they often only serve a limited utilitarian purpose as dust collectors on coffee tables of hospital waiting rooms or doctors’ practices. It should be of little surprise then that the relative importance of geographic magazines as a representational forum has been underestimated historically. The importance of geographic magazines as an outlet for creating and disseminating preconceived visions of what may be termed ‘popular geographies’ has only become the subject of scrutiny in the last two decades. Authors including Lutz and Collins (1993) and Rothenberg (1994, 2007) have reflected critically upon the place of NG as a powerful ideological institution for legitimating particular visions of the world in the wider corpus of the discipline of geography. Yet while there has been a substantial volume of work dedicated to unravelling the situated lens of NG there has been no research devoted to deciphering the lenses of other geography magazines such as Canadian Geographic (CG), Australian Geographic (AG) or New Zealand Geographic (NZG). These magazines also embody the ideals of adventure, discovery and nature made famous by NG but purvey geography through distinctively national narratives. Through discourse analysis the thesis examines these three magazines in order to unravel geographic imaginations of nationalism in CG, AG and NZG and in the process challenge divergent conceptions of geography itself as both an academic discipline and popular subject.

This diploma thesis deals with the level of entry knowledge and ideas about continents of pupils of younger school age. The aim of this thesis is to investigate complex ideas and knowledge of pupils about continents through a single research conducted in the fourth and fifth grades of three primary schools. The research date is further analysed. It will focus on the source from which children learn the information; quality, accuracy, character, extent of this knowledge, and the emotional plane of cognition and preconception. The evaluation of the research as well as the key task of the work is to analyze the difference of pupils' results by individual schools, to compare the results of the fourth and fifth grades and, last but not least, to compare the level of knowledge of boys and girls. The result of the didactic application of research data, in the practical part of the thesis, is the creation of educational material in the form of project teaching for the fourth and fifth grades of primary schools. The content of the thesis is structured into five sub-units. The research part is preceded by the theoretical part, containing the theoretical starting points of the thesis and discussion with the literature related to the given issue. The second, methodological part, introduces the subject, course and processing of the research, including applied research methods and methods used in the practical part of the thesis. The core of the work is the research part which summarizes the collected data and informs about the results of the survey. The research is followed by the practical part which includes the proposal of own project teaching for the fourth and fifth grade of primary school. The final part confirms and rejects the input hypotheses of the research.

The diploma thesis "The Anthology of National Geography and History North Moravia" is handling the issue of publishing this book title which is a significant representative of its kind. Anthologies of National Geography and History have a unique position among other printed documents. And in addition, the anthology North Moravia is, as the only one of its kind, published in the whole Czech Republic almost continuously from 1957 when the museums of Zábřeh, Mohelnice and Loštice started to publish it together. The diploma thesis presents the anthology, introduces its 50 years history, characteristics of this type of a journal. It is going to refer to the specifics which differentiate the anthology from other journals. The thesis includes a quantitative research, in the form of a content analysis which examines the content of the anthology in the course of 50 years. The thesis follows processed topics, regular columns, types of contributions and development of the anthology in the mentioned period. It wants to answer the questions whether such anthology is able to inform - through popular form - readers from among experts as well as among layman public about geographical themes, whether it is its aim to educate as well, what is its reaction to current events and whether it is able to attract nowadays...