Standard 1: How to use maps and other geographic representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective
Standard 2: How to use mental maps to organize information about people, places, and environments in a spatial context
Standard 3: How to analyze the spatial organization of people, places, and environments on earth's surface
Got Maps?: Collection of Regional and Thematic Maps [Hofstra University] This site aims to provide a collection of high-quality maps to be used in the classroom. The following maps will be most useful for Element A generally:
STANDARD 1: How to use maps and other geographic representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective
MapMachine [NationalGeographic.com]	World map in one color showing borders, major cities, rivers. Use the directional arrows and zoom bar on left for selecting area to see greater detail, or move the mouse over a selected area and click to zoom in or out. The closest zoom does not show more information, just greater scale. Best use is for overview of continents, seas, and country borders.
Got Maps?: Collection of Regional and Thematic Maps [Hofstra University] This site aims to provide a collection of high-quality maps to be used in the classroom. The following map of World Population Density (based on 1995 figures) will be most useful here:
World Guide Satellite Images [Intute Database] Satellite images arranged by themes and countries. Most of the images are from public sources and can be used for free. Also see the Interactive World Map section.
Google Maps The homepage defaults to a map of North America; to get to Asia, click the left-arrow (at the top-left corner of the map) several times. Also, select "Satellite" at the top-right corner of the map to see a topographical map, and select "Hybrid" to see the topographical map overlaid with political boundaries.
The World Wide Panorama [University of California at Berkeley] This site's focus is VR panorama images from around the world and not geography or maps, but the Surf the Big Map feature provides an excellent interactive topographical map that viewers can navigate to find panoramic images from a specific geographical area.
STANDARD 2: How to use mental maps to organize information about people, places, and environments in a spatial context
Essay on Cultural Geography: "Mental Maps" [About.com] A brief essay. The page also contains many links for map resources.
ArchAtlas [University of Sheffield] This project, begun at Oxford University in 2000 and now at the University of Sheffield's department of archaeology, uses GIS techniques—electronic cartography—to integrate information on archaeological sites, cultural entities, and contact routes. Utilizing satellite imagery, the site provides a visual summary of spatial processes such as the spread of farming, the formation of trade contacts, and the growth of urban systems. Although it is focused primarily on Europe and the Middle East, there is information and approaches that relate to East Asia.
Globalis [United Nations University] An interactive world atlas featuring several thematic maps highlighting the impact of human society on the world's ecosystems. The map below shows the projected impact of human society on the ecosystems of Asia by the year 2050. The darkest areas of the map show the most impact.
STANDARD 3: How to analyze the spatial organization of people, places, & environments on earth's surface
1996 Political Map of China with National and Provincial Borders [Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, University of Texas at Austin] Map showing China's national borders, provincial borders, and neighboring countries with their borders.
1995 Political Map of East and Southeast Asia [Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, University of Texas at Austin] Map showing country borders, names, major cities, and rivers in East and Southeast Asia.
Topographical Maps of Asia [National Geographic] Maps of Asia, including a regional map and maps of China, Japan and Korea, Indochina, and Southeast Asia. The maps are in full color and are based on weather satellite images taken by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
All About China [EnchantedLearning.com] This website has several printable maps, map activities, and quizzes, in addition to other classroom resources on China.
Tourist Map of Japan [Japan National Tourist Organization] This easy-to-navigate map of Japan shows the eight major regions of Japan. Users can mouse over a region to get a list of cities, and click on a desired city to see a street map of the central district for that city.
Geography of Japan [Japan Digest] A succinct overview of Japan’s geography, covering the following topics: Japan in Spatial Terms; Physical Systems; Environment and Society; Places and Regions; Human Systems; and Uses of Geography.
Interactive Map-Making Tool [Online Map Creation] This website lets users fill out an online form to generate their own maps based on selected criteria. Users can choose to create one of six major projections (Mercator; Equidistant Cylindrical; Polar Stereographic; Lambert Azimuthal; Azimuthal Equidistant; Orthographic), plot coordinates, and add details such as national boundaries, rivers, and contour lines to show topographical and bathymetrical information.
TimeMap [Archaeological Computing Laboratory, University of Sydney] This page features some examples of animations created with TimeMap TMJava, a mapping applet that generates interactive and/or animated maps. Several of these sample animations portray aspects of China's historical geography; one sample is on Korean geography. TimeMap is a university-based research project, and the mapping software can be freely downloaded from this website.
Antique Maps of China Database [The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology] For advanced world geography and world history students. This database from the Special Collections of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology includes some 230 maps, charts, pictures, books, and atlases (mostly of East Asia and Southeast Asia) produced by European cartographers from the 16th to the 19th century. The earlier maps differ widely from 21st-century maps of China in their spatial layout, proportions, and spelling of place names. Overall, this collection illustrates the developing European knowledge of East and Southeast Asia in geographic terms, as well as the evolution of map-making technology.
Japanese Historical Maps [East Asian Library, University of California at Berkeley] This online collection features more than 1,100 images of maps made in Japan before contact with Western map-making and allows viewers to zoom in to tiny details on images that are more like exquisite, somewhat schematic, landscape paintings than what we traditionally think of as maps to see small towns, daimyo castles, rivers, forests, and more on these early 19th-century maps. There are also later maps which resemble copies, somewhat distorted, of Western maps, with longitude and latitude lines and Japanese labels.
Outline Maps of China [Asia for Educators] Outline maps designed to be used as transparencies that can be overlaid on an overhead projector to demonstrate the diversity of China's physical and cultural geography. Copies can be printed out and reproduced also for student use. Includes outline maps of China and the World, China and Surrounding Nations, and China.
Every economy produces a wide variety of things. Economists usually divide economic production into goods (cars, televisions, gasoline, food) and services (insurance, legal advice, entertainment, education). The total amount of goods and services produced within a country during the course of a year is called the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The GDP translates the value of all things produced in an economy into money, which makes it possible to compare the size of one country's economy with that of another.
Find statistics or a graph to illustrate the size of Japan's economy (or Gross Domestic Product--GDP) in comparison with the economies of other large market economies. Try to find statistics for the United States, Germany, France, Italy and Great Britain.
What else would you have to know about Japan to know how the size of Japan's economy affects such things as the standard of living of the population?
Thirty years ago, all of the goods and services produced in the United States each year (the GDP of the economy) amounted to much more than those produced by Germany, France, Britain or Japan. Between 1950 and 1995, although the U.S. economy continued to grow, the economies of these other countries grew at a faster rate. By 1995, the U.S. economy was still the largest, but other countries had begun to catch up. Japan was the fastest growing country for almost thirty years. However, the Japanese economy started to slow from 1990 to 1995. In fact, in 1998, the Japanese economy will probably shrink for the first time since the early 1970s. When an economy has negative growth, for half of a year, it is called a recession.
Find statistics or a graph to illustrate the amount of goods and services produced in Japan, France, Germany and the United States in the last forty years.
Which of the four countries had the smallest economies in 1950? What percent of U.S. production did this represent?
Which country had the largest economy in 1995 (other than the United States)? Which was the smallest?
In addition to knowing how large a country's economy is or how fast it is growing, economists like to relate this to the size of the country's population. Economists divide the total economic production in one year (GNP) by the number of people in the country (the population) to get the amount of production per person, called the GNP per person (or per capita, meaning "per head").
Find statistics or a graph that illustrates the GDP per person in various countries. (Canada, Mexico, The Unite States, Japan, Korea, Australia etc.) GDP per person measures per capital income in terms of what a person in each of the countries can buy with his or her income. Since prices may be higher in Japan than in other countries, this Purchasing Power Parity measure gives us a much better idea of how well off the average Japanese person is compared to citizens of other industrialized countries.
If you rank these countries, beginning with the one with the largest income per person and ending with the smallest, what is Japan's rank?
Economists determine how advanced an economy is by comparing how many people work in agriculture, industry, or services (such as stores, insurance companies, television and radio stations, railways and airlines, or government offices.) According to economic theory, economies become more technologically advanced in stages: All societies begin as agricultural societies, where most people are involved in growing food to eat (an agricultural society.)
With the introduction of fertilizers, better seeds, and farm machinery, food production becomes more efficient. Greater numbers of people are then able to move away from farms to work in industry (in industrial society). At the same time, as people's incomes rise, they spend more money on goods produced by industry.
As manufacturing becomes highly productive through the use of more sophisticated machines (computers and robots included), more people leave manufacturing industries to work in service industries. This again corresponds with a greater demand for services by the people.
An "advanced economy" is one in which the service industries employ most of the people, due to a combination of a shift in consumer demand and changes in the production efficiency of agriculture and industry.
Find statistics or a graph to illustrate how many people are employed in agriculture, industry or services in various countries including Japan. (France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States and China would provide a useful comparison)
According to the definition of an "advanced" economy used by some economists, to what extent do these countries all have advanced economies? Explain.
In comparison to the land area of the United States, the Japanese islands account for a relatively small land area (about the size of Montana or California), but in comparison to the many nations of Europe, Japan is about average. Japan's population, however, is very large: Japan is the eighth most populist country in the world.
Japan's relatively small land area, coupled with its large population results in high population density. Also, Japan's land area is not only small, but very mountainous. Mountains cover four-fifths of the land. Cities and farms compete for the small amount of land that is flat.
Find statistics illustrating the world's ten most populous countries. Then look for population density for these countries.
Traditionally, Japanese eat little meat, using fish and soybeans as sources of protein. Tofu, soy sauce, and miso bean paste are all made from soybeans. As a staple, Japanese now eat an increasing amount of noodles and bread as well as rice. Noodles and bread are both made from wheat.
Find statistics to illustrate which foods Japan imports. Also look for the sources of these imports. Then look for information about the markets for American Food Exports.
For Industry, every country must have raw materials that can be used to build factories and machinery and make products. In addition to oil, some important raw materials are coal, iron ore, copper, aluminum, and wood. If a country does not have these resources, it must import them from other countries.
Japan's domestic energy sources are small, mostly hydroelectric power and coal. As Japan's economy has grown, it has needed to buy (import) vast quantities of energy, particularly oil and coal, from other countries.
Find statistics to illustrate what percentage of energy needs are imported by the following countries: Japan, China, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Rank the six countries according to the degree to which they are dependent on imports for their energy needs. (Rank them from most dependent to least dependent.)
How do you think Japan's efforts at energy conservation and the development of alternative energy sources will affect Japan's dependence on imported energy in the future?
While the trade between the United States and Japan is important for both countries, Japan also trades increasing amounts of goods with other Asian countries and other places around the world.
Find statistics that illustrates what percentage of Japan's imports come from Asia, Europe, North American, South American and Africa. What percentage of Japan's exports go to these regions. Also look for the contents of these imports and exports.
Which regions buy the greatest portion of Japan's exports? Explain this in terms of the type of goods Japan exports.
From which area of the world does Japan buy the greatest portions of its imports? Explain this in terms of the type of goods Japan imports.
"During the first millennium B.C., bronze technology and then iron technology are introduced into the Korean peninsula, probably from the northern regions of the continental mainland, and are used to produce both utilitarian and ritual implements. Advances in metallurgy and a dependence on agriculture spur the development of a more complex social hierarchy, which is attested by increasingly elaborate burial practices." With a period overview, list of key events, and one related artwork.
"Archaeologists believe the Koreans descended from the nomadic Mongolian tribes that lived in North and Central Asia." A brief one-paragraph overview, along with an image of one object representative of the period.
"From the first century B.C. until the 7th century, Korea was divided into three states." A brief one-paragraph overview of the Koguryô, Paekche and Silla kingdoms of Korea, along with images of three objects representative of the period.
A short introduction, with images of six artifacts, of which four are found in the museum's collection.
Background reading about "[a] Korean origin myth described in [the] context of Korean society and as a comparison to Western thought."
In this lesson plan students will (1) Perform Korea’s creation myth as a play; (2) Explain the symbolic significance of the details in the myth; (3) Describe the aspects of ancient Korean religion and culture; (4) Identify historical facts and influences; and (5) Explore how the mythic message continues to unite Koreans.