The Study Of Inquiry Geography Textbooks

Inquiry learning has been introduced into China since1980. It has been already widely used in primary and secondary school in various disciplines, including the geography subject. Researches on geographical inquiry learning have been limited on the teaching methods, the curriculum exploration and so on. There are few researches on geographical inquiry learning textbooks. During my graduate study, I have participated in the International Science Textbook Comparison Group in ECNU, and have done some researches on the Japanese geography textbooks of junior high school which has emphasized on the inquiry learning.I chose two sets of Japanese geography textbooks as the objects of my research. One textbook is the "Social Geography" published by the Tokyo publisher and the other set of textbooks are the "Science" published by the Japan publisher. Through the case study of the textbooks, we can find the characteristics of the textbooks and absorb the experiences and advantages of it, so that it can help us to enhance the editing and writing level of our geography textbooks. There are five chapters in this thesis.The chapter1is the study of the inquiry learning. It defines’inquiry learning’and introduces the development history of the inquiry learning, and raises that inquiry learning should have been added in textbooks which gives the rise to the second chapter.The chapter2is the study of geographical inquiry learning textbooks. It points out that inquiry learning textbook is one kind of inquiry learning forms. The geographical inquiry learning is reflected in the text system and activities system of textbooks. It has introduced two inquiry learning textbooks:the Biology Science Curriculum Study(BSCS) and the View of Science whose characteristic is full of inquiry activities.The chapter3is the study of Japanese geography courses of junior high school, which are arranged in both society and science subjects. The society subject’s content is humanity geography and the target is to cultivate students to adapt to the society and obtain learning skills. The science subject’s content is physical geography and the target is to cultivate students’ science skills and ideas. The standard of the Japanese courses has been reformed in March,2008, which emphasizes on the students’ view and learning skills.The chapter4is the case study of the Japanese geography textbooks. I chose four cases from textbook "Social Geography" and "Science". Through these case studies, we can find the features of Japanese geography textbooks are full of diverse inquiry activities, moderate difficulty of activities, detailed inquiry instructions and special chapter of inquiry learning.The chapter5is to analyze and summarize the enlightenment of the geography textbooks, and also to make recommendations for us:adding the guidance and reference of inquiry learning in textbooks, making use of the cross-disciplinary subjects to broaden students’ horizons; carrying out exploration activities and enhancing the effectiveness of the activities.