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Geography The World And Its People - Student Edition (ISBN 0-02-823270-4)
Although this book is produced for
the American market there are many aspects of it which would prove very
useful for students in schools following a British curriculum. For a start
there is a Reference Atlas at the front of the book so that students can
easily locate any countries, cities etc that the book makes reference
to. This is followed by a comprehensive Geography and Map Skills Handbook
containing details about globes, map projections, different types of maps
and graphs and charts. So if a student needs help with any of these core
skills they will know exactly where to find it. (The only major omission
here from a British point of view is of any Ordnance Survey style maps.)
As with many British textbooks these skills are also integrated into the
main body of the book.
The majority of this book is taken up with a regionally based study of
the World arranged into the following sections:
Each section contains within it information
about the Land, Climate and Vegetation, Economy, People and the Culture
of a particular region. There are also numerous simple activities for
students to work on such as map studies, words to know,
places to locate and graphic studies. Interspersed throughout
the book are a variety of more challenging and interesting units such
as GeoLabs; Images of the World - sets of superb photographs
from the National Geographic magazine; Building Geography Skills
and Making Connections - which develops links with other subjects.
Certainly in terms of building key skills and knowledge via a wide range
of activities Geography The World And Its People cannot be faulted.
It scores heavily over most British texts with its concentration on the
fantastic variety of landscapes, peoples and cultures found around the
globe. As the majority of British textbooks take a thematic approach to
studying Geography at Key Stage 3 there is a lack of choice for those
departments which adopt a regional approach. Even when such an approach
is used only two countries are generally studied in any depth. Although
it's unlikely that departments following a more regional approach would
consider this as a class text, given the obvious American flavour to it,
there is definitely room for it in any school library where it will provide
a wealth of valuable data and ideas for any inquiring student.
My thanks to Liz Nuttall at McGraw-Hill for providing a review copy
of this book.