Maps, Earth Apps and Land Images: Different Tools for Different Skills

Abstract

Susanna Occhipinti

An analysis carried out on first (11-14) and second grade (14-18) Italian secondary school students and an in-depth analysis carried out in recent years, during the in the different stages of regional and national selections of the Earth Sciences Olympics, and particularly with the students participating in the learning week organized for who will make up the Italian team of the IESO -International Olympiad of Earth Science, highlighted widespread difficulties in the analysis of topographic maps. The decreasing diffusion of geography teaching in Italian schools, the increasing use of digital tools, apps and software, such as Google Earth and navigators, free and easy to use, has made the use of the topographic maps, and of the various thematic ones, among the students, substantially obsolete.

If the use of digital tools has promoted digital skills, ease of orientation, even greater security in discovering new places, it is leading meanwhile to the loss of skills of observation, analysis and understanding of the context, that only the view of a large area included in a map and not in a few inches of a screen, can give. In reality, both resources constitute a formidable tool, not only for the discovery and knowledge of the territory, but for the growth of specific skills, which are crucial for the knowledge of a territory, but also indispensable in scientific research. In this research we analyse tools, models and pathways, which foresee the integration of the two resources, and which skills their integrated use can implement.

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