| Abstract: | Abstract This article advocates that geography teachers undertake field studies of human systems with their students. A field trip process is described that helps teachers to guide students to explore and analyze a real human system with the expressed goal of building skills that can transfer to and complement a wide range of geographic learning tasks identified in Geography for Life: National Geography Standards 1994. Students are taken to a human system, such as a supermarket or a hotel. In groups, students interview as well as tour with a representative of a key department of the human system. Using teacher-supplied materials, groups create models or visual schematics of the whole human system they studied. The model must show the complex as a collection of interdependent elements with distinct functions. The learning outcomes achieved by students are a collection of geographic skills ideal for transfer to subsequent geographic investigations of urban places and or regions. |
