Understanding and nurturing spatial literacy

Abstract

This paper focuses on the character, nature, and development of spatial literacy. We explore a series of questions that frame the range of knowledges and skills that encompass this form of literacy, including how spatial literacy can be characterized across a continuum of expertise; how expertise in spatial thinking and reasoning develops; how spatial literacy may be measured and evaluated; and how spatial literacy can be nurtured in society, in our research, and through teaching. By focusing on the necessary educational foundations or anchors required for spatial literacy, specifically ways in which geography and other science educators at all education levels can explicitly teach spatial concepts, the use of spatial representations, and processes of spatial reasoning, we hope to help set an agenda for future work.