Geographic and Environmental Themes in Children’s Literature

Abstract

A rich pool of geographic and environmental ideas are embedded children’s literature. This paper illuminates the geographic and environmental education themes present in second to eighth grade Common Core fiction, especially for leveraging this content for geographic and environmental education and in support of topically integrated learning approaches. Content analysis reveals a range of geographic information relating to space, place, society, and environmental processes. These works include copious descriptions, contextual background information, and social prescriptions related to human-environment interaction. The spatial information contained in these works creates a powerful resource for instruction, augmenting efforts to improve spatial literacy in classrooms.