Introduction to Human Geography, like most freshman-level survey courses in the social sciences, is typically taught using the traditional model of instructor as lecturer and student as note-taker. The proposed series of one-week summer workshops engage faculty who teach introductory human geography courses in a more student-centered model of learning using hands-on materials that challenge students to collect, manipulate, analyze, and present geographic information. The workshop will be organized around 13 activities from "Human Geography in Action," a recently published human geography workbook (New York, Wiley, 1997). Each freestanding activity demonstrates a basic concept in human geography including: scale, region, diffusion, spatial interaction, space-time prisms, location theory, age-sex pyramids, development, urban hierarchy, urban land use, residential segregation, nations and states, and environmental change. Seven of the activities are computerized projects on CD-ROM. Each session participant will be expected to complete several of the activities, and brainstorm topics and methods for future activities. These workshops will serve as the basis for disseminating a more innovative approach to human geography, one in which students literally do geography as they learn geography.
