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Teaching Geography Using Films: A ProposalMaria Teresa di Palma aa University of Pavia , ItalyPublished online: 17 Jun 2009.

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Teaching Geography Using Films: A ProposalMaria Teresa di Palma

ABSTRACTFilms are often used in schools toillustrate geography, but doing somay favor mainly passive learning.An experiment with twenty-eightpupils aged thirteen years (a wholeclass) had the aim of using cinema topromote active geographical learning.First, it was ascertained what thedominant geographical stereotypeswere among the pupils and the filmsthat conveyed these stereotypes. Thena traditional lesson using textbookswas given but this proved inefficientat removing stereotypes. More creativework was needed. Since film planningforces students to actively applytheir geographical knowledge to solvetechnical problems (locations, screenplay,sets, etc.), making a movie was planned.

Key Words: geographical teaching, film,stereotypes, fiction, terrestrial environments

Maria Teresa di Palma teaches in an Italiansecondary school and at the Post GraduateSchool for Teaching at the University ofPavia, Italy. She also conducts research inthe history of geography and explorations atthe same university. Her areas of research in-clude history of cartography of the XV–XVIIcenturies, history of geographical representa-tions, and stereotypical interpretations. Therelationship between film and geographicalimagery is a new field of research for her.

INTRODUCTIONThis article reports on an experiment carried out in a secondary school class

with thirteen-year-old pupils involving the use of cinema to teach geography inan active way. By doing so, I sought to transform the way films are viewed intoactive teaching where “students can learn to be intellectually flexible” (Birdsall2003, 29). The work (excluding the video shots) was carried out over ten weeks,two hours of lessons per week for a total of twenty hours, in the 2003–2004 schoolyear, in a class of twenty-eight students (twenty boys and eight girls).

In this experiment, I dealt with the theme of terrestrial environments, a keytopic that lies on the boundary between geography, natural sciences, and ecology.In particular, geography considers environments in relation to human presence,and by using a variety of approaches including the study of the physicalcharacteristics (physical geography), landscape (regional geography), peopledistribution (human geography), and the study of the subjective perception ofthe environment (perceptual geography) (Corna Pellegrini and Bianchi 1992).The experiment took into account a number of these approaches and assumed asits fundamental guideline that teaching geography must ensure that students areable to think independently and critically (critical learning). In other words, if

. . . for most of the history of this discipline, geographic knowledgehas been descriptive, in the latter part of this century there has beena change towards the creation of knowledge generated by the needto understand not only the what’s and where’s, but also the why’s andhow’s. (Golledge 2002, 1)

In the classroom, given that terrestrial environments are doubly inaccessible—due to both their location and their partially abstract quality—teachers can benefitfrom the use of the indirect perception of the environment transmitted by cinemaand television, different media that both achieve similar results in describingenvironments. In fact, in the construction of geographic imagery relating to places,if we have not experienced the place directly then indirect sources dominate theperception of place (Zerbi 1993). Gibson (1986, 441) has shown how cinema, aspictures in motion, is closer to the perception processes of reality and throughit “the spectator experiences a reawakening and intense empathy, a feeling thathe or she really is in the places described.” Therefore, it appears very useful towork with movies, a “warm tool” having a double emotional impact (Tan 1996)—one pertaining to the medium itself and the other created by the storyline—to give an effective environmental education, able to change human behavior(Kirman 2003). In addition, rather than reading a book teenagers prefer watchingmovies or television (Aitken 1994), and this may favor the use of movies inthe classroom. However, it should be noted that there are also some negative sideeffects of watching television or movies, such as superficial, limited, or stereotypedknowledge, inhibited imagination, or information overload. To minimize thesepossible disadvantages, it is important to carefully scrutinize the various problemsbefore using movies for teaching, such as: Can teachers transform viewing intoknowledge? Can pupils learn something about geography as a science throughfiction? How can a teacher teach that a world environment is not a simple,unchanging, and eternal fact that begins and ends with what we see? Moviescreate many stereotypes; how can teachers control and overcome them? How canmovies be used to make pupils the key actors of the learning process and favorthe growth of their critical awareness?

Journal of Geography 108: 47–56C©2009 National Council for Geographic Education 47

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VIEWING VS. KNOWLEDGE“The use of visual teaching material alone is not sufficient

enough to enhance visual thought. . . . Simply presentingphotographs, drawings, models or practical exhibitions asaids for study is no guarantee that the subject will beunderstood deeply” (Arnheim 1969, 361). In particular,when we watch a movie our focus goes from the scene to thecharacters and concentrates on the storyline, “forgetting”its location unless the director decides that the landscapeshould become the subject of the film. Seeing does not meanperceiving; perception needs specific work mainly when weconsider the background, or scenario. First our gaze takesin the background and then it distinguishes the differentobjects; when the latter are focused on the backgroundis ignored (Arnheim 1969, 333). In this experiment, mygoal was to make the background the foreground; in otherwords, make the environment more prominent through anactive method.

It is true that everybody has a personal mental mapof the world (Downs and Stea 1972a), but not everyonehas a geographic knowledge of the world, rather “he/shewho attentively observes the world around him/her is insome manner a geographer” (Lowenthal 1961, 242). Theprimary aim of a teacher is therefore to find a way totransform a student’s personal visions and experiences(often superficial and incomplete) into attentive observations.For the study of terrestrial habitats through movies, the firststep was to pass from the initial observation of locations bystudents (steps 1a and 3b) to a more structured geographicknowledge of terrestrial habitats.

FICTION VS. REALITYThe second problem posed by the use of movies for teach-

ing is their virtual nature: they are actually fictions, manip-ulations of reality. When one works on landscape, thereare no mediators; the starting point is the landscape itselfand hence it can be explored. By choosing suitably from thedifferent modes, one can decide what information should beconsidered fundamental and what is secondary. In addition,the feeling a certain landscape transmits in a specific mo-ment enhances the environmental perception and promotesa consequent personal consciousness and attitude. In thedirect experience of the landscape, there lies all the potentialfor the transactional qualities that the landscape itselfpossesses (Ittelson 1973). Instead, in an indirect experience,the landscape is filtered by the representation, which in anycase cannot “duplicate” the landscape as it really is andthere is no guarantee that all its qualities will emerge. Evenif the image can record views, sounds, movement, providemultidirectionality of information, and somehow conveythe mood, it cannot enable the observer’s participation(Zonn 1984).

Representation implies a director’s deeper subjectivity.This happens in all types of films, including documentaries(Aitken 1994). For documentaries, it should be rememberedthat they are even more difficult to use due to their supposed

objectivity. As early as 1965 Norman Graves advisedteachers to use documentaries sparingly and, in any case, toturn off the sound, which greatly influences the viewing ofimages. The students involved in my experiment, whenasked “What is the difference between a movie and adocumentary?” immediately responded “the out-of-fieldnarrative,” which confers to documentaries a major effect ofreality. Therefore, when deciding what type of film to selectas teaching material, I excluded documentaries as it wouldbe more difficult and time-consuming to counteract their“objectivity,” to be clearer, and to reveal their fundamentalnature of fiction.

Nature in cinema, even when the locations,in other words the sets, are natural, isalways mediated by the artificial nature ofcinematographic language. Every film usesspecific lenses, filters and camera move-ments, editing techniques and sight-soundassociations to give the landscape, the lo-cation, the environment a particular mean-ing by investing it with symbolic values.(Castelli 1989, 9)

Special effects can make a movie hyper-real just in theattempt to convey a credible message (Canova 2000). Inparticular, the geographer’s interest is focused on howcinema contributes to conveying the “feeling of a place”and identity; in other words, how it can become “a forcefuldeterminant of cultural norms” (Aitken 1994, 293). Somegeopolitical studies have used movies to highlight thearchetypal roots of various national cultures, for example,how the American national identity was formed by theWestern genre. (For a review of different types of geo-graphic interpretation of movies refer to Kennedy andLukinbeal 1997.)

In film the fundamental elements are thepeople and environments. Thus in a novel,for instance, written words that constitutea narrative are organized so as to recreatepeople, places and events, but in narrativecinema the world is there, very recogniz-able, from the beginning. (Aitken 1991, 105)

To use a movie as a tool for reflection regarding howstudents behave and see themselves (Aitken 2003), theteacher has to analyze a movie without separating its formfrom the content (step 3b). This way, a movie is not reducedto being solely narration or purely linguistic (frames, close-ups, foregrounds, fields, editing, viewpoints), or simplya view of beautiful landscapes or settings (Aitken 1991,105). Therefore, the teacher has to highlight how filmingtechniques and editing affect how the message of the film isconveyed (step 2). If there is no“expert in image educationor cinema educator” in the school, the teacher can refer tomanuals regarding the topic (Jackson 1998; Bettetini 1973;Newcomer 2006; Goldfarb 2002; Vinson and Ross 2003;

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Watson 1990) in order to accustom themselves with thecharacteristics of cinematographic language.

STEREOTYPES VS. COMPLEXITYThe third problem posed by the use of movies for teaching

is that

. . . media is principally to blame for theproduction and permanence of stereotypesbecause they create an extensive culturalmatrix in which the image can developand maintain itself without respecting thereality which it seeks to represent. (Burgessand Gold 1985, 10)

At times, stereotypes can assist teaching, especially inthe initial stages, because they can help to communicatenew information. However, it is important that studentsunderstand that they are only stereotypes and that levelsdiffer, are rigid and static, and everything is reduced tothe here and now. Stereotypes transform into fact whatin nature is a process because of the constant changesthat occur caused by a whole range of factors, togetherwith the diversity and complexity of the relationshipsthese imply. To overcome the risk of conformity anddefeat the stereotype regarding different environments, theteacher has to demonstrate that complex relationships liebehind each landscape and that terrestrial environmentsare processes in a constant state of change. To obtain theseresults teaching must be multimedia, making use of alltypes of media, including written texts (step 3a). Eachform of media has characteristics that can be useful fordifferent purposes. The way that books are printed, forinstance,

. . . privileges the linear articulation ofknowledge, its subdivision into indepen-dent blocks, demonstrative logic, deduc-tive hypothetical reasoning etc. . . . Insteadthe post-Gutenberg media stimulate otherforms of knowledge: contemporaneity, con-tamination, demonstrative logic, analogicalreasoning, articulation of networks, connec-tive processes. . . . (Maragliano 1999, 37)

Engaging in multimedia teaching means using the differentmedia to maintain and possibly extend the variety oflearning mechanisms and the plurality of thought.

PASSIVE VS. ACTIVE LEARNINGThe last problem associated with the use of movies

in teaching is that movies are fundamentally a passivetool. Good teaching with audiovisual material involvesshowing good quality films, possibly in sufficient numberto give an ample range of viewpoints on the same theme(Ansell 2002) preceded and followed by comments andquestionnaires. When the project began, the idea was to

compile an anthology DVD as a final product that collectedtogether footage from films grouped according to the worldenvironments portrayed. For this task, the students’ rolewas fundamentally passive. However, my aim was to createa workshop that began with images with the objectiveof transforming them into scientific knowledge, ensuringthat the students continued to be protagonists in their ownlearning processes. It therefore became necessary to adoptan operational teaching methodology based on practicalwork, following the students’ own interests (Dewey 1916).If watching a movie is a passive experience, its planningis a creative act. Planning movies forces students tobecome actively involved in solving practical problemsby applying their geographical knowledge (step 4b). Theconstruction of a film by students was often proposednot only as a form of cinematic education in general, butin particular as a means to enhance critical awareness inthe spectator whose knowledge of the tricks of the trademakes it more difficult for him or her to be captivated andmesmerized.

THE EXPERIENCE PATHWAY

Step 1. The StartIn teaching projects there are two preliminary stages:

motivation and sharing (step 1a), and awareness of “whatwe already know” (step 1b).

My proposal to the class to imagine a trip to farawayplaces immediately attracted the cooperation of the stu-dents and the first task was to create a concept map of“Journeys in faraway countries” (step 1a). For step 1a, Idid some “brainstorming” with my pupils regarding theirideas on trips to overseas countries. Then, with the students,I grouped all the concepts together to form a concept map(Novak 1998) of travels, trips, and journeys: how peopletravel, how people prepare for a journey, what kind ofenvironment people may encounter, reasons for traveling,and what people may already know (Fig. 1).

Now following step1b an investigation into dominantstereotypes and subconscious notions about the subject (inthis case knowledge of habitats and climates) is necessary.Current practice is to elicit this knowledge by askingquestions. Once I had decided to use films based on fictionalstories (narrative cinema) as a tool, I thought that the bestplace to start would be asking students to take their picturesfrom these; visual language, albeit incomplete comparedto the other sense channels that filter our perceptions,allows us to evaluate the mental image an individual mayhold of a certain environment independently of specificknowledge and language aptitude. Considering that theobjective of this stage of the project was to ascertainwhat knowledge the students already had, the teachermust not supply information. The students themselvesmust submit their images. The teacher’s task is to askquestions and to set limits to the choices that the studentsmake.

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Figure 1. Concept map, step 1.

Step 2. Searching For and Presenting Film Clips WhereLandscapes Are Characterized

The second step of the project concentrated specificallyon the different terrestrial environments: tundra, taiga, for-est (coniferous, hardwood, broadleaf), prairies, savannas,shrub lands, glaciers, desert (hot or cold), but also temperate(cultivated) lands and urban landscapes. The pupils wereasked to bring a videotape with a new film clip—twoor three minutes—illustrating, for example, a rain forestor a hot desert. They also were asked to record the filmdata (title, director, country, year of production) and toexplain the reason for their choice. To facilitate reflectionon stereotypes, I allowed the students the widest choiceof material from what they normally watched (if it wasnot inappropriate). Much of the imagery and footage thatstudents presented was taken from B-rated movies whichhad been very successful at the box office, with somepleasant exceptions (possibly suggested by other familymembers).

With a cinema educator I analyzed the clips in theclassroom, while listening to the pupil’s explanations about

his or her choice. Then I illustratedthe main technical features of filmlanguage (e.g., time-phasing by el-lipse and transition; cross-fading tosymbolize the crossing of territory).Finally the students classified all thefragments according to the themes(Table 1 and Table 2). Many interest-ing things emerged, for example, nostudent brought films with prairies,maybe also because they do not watchwesterns. In addition, some studentsstated that they were unable to findfilm footage with temperate (cultivated)land and this was further proof of howone can lose sight of the landscape afilm is set in when watching it. Afterexploring and eliciting the students’conceptualization of imagery, othertools were necessary to overcomestereotypes.

Step 3. Classroom StudyAt this point (step 3a), traditional

teaching using textbooks and atlasescan help to correct mistakes and ex-plain how and why there are differ-ent environments (e.g., relationshipsbetween climate, position). For thestudents, texts are provided with therole and garb of objective and reliablescientific authority; therefore I usedthe manual to explain the differentterrestrial environments and to studytheir characteristics. Verbal languagebecomes necessary when students

must organize their knowledge, not because this is the mostlogical way to do it but because our brains have becomeaccustomed to this method over the course of history.A continuous consultation and manipulation of atlases isnecessary to help form or improve upon our mental maps(Downs and Stea 1972a, 1972b). So, working in parallelwith texts, film footage, and atlases involves creating anetwork of cross-references that engages different skills,including the capacity to draw inferences, by providinggreater amounts of source material for comparison, andallowing students to choose the method most appropriatefor them. The use of textbooks is only an intermediate stepin an active learning process, important yet not sufficient. Toreverse the dogmatic view conveyed by films and inscribedin the pupils’ mental landscapes, the ipse dixit both ofteachers and textbooks is not enough. It is better to go backto movies as emotional and checking tools.

On completing this step 3b, rather than giving an oral teston what had been studied, I requested students to: “Chooseanother short movie clip—even from the previous films—but this time including an event or an episode as well, for

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Table 1. Main technical features of film language.

Title Director Sequence/Episode Transports Things

French Kiss Kasdan, Lawrence The protagonists meet each other on aplane to Paris

Airplane

Home Alone Columbus, Chris The departure of the protagonist’s familyfrom Chicago’s airport

Airport

Home Alone 2 Columbus, Chris The protagonist leaves alone from NewYork’s airport

Airport

Nati con la camicia Clucher, E. B. The protagonists check in under a falsename at the airport

Airport Tickets

Psycho Hitchcock, Alfred Escape of a female clerk after she steals$40,000

Car Money, luggage

Vacanze di Natale2000

Verdone, Carlo In a winter tourist village the protagonistsunload the luggage

Car Luggage

Viaggio di nozze Verdone, Carlo Luggage ready, a newly wedded couplegets by car to the ship on which they’ll goon a cruise

Car, ship Luggage

Lord of the Rings, ThePart 1

Jackson, Peter Frodo, a hobbit, packs and hides a magicring

Foot Luggage

Harry Potter and thePhilosopher’s Stone

Columbus, Chris Magic allows Harry Potter to go on the trainfor Hogwarts

Magic, railway station

Fra’ Diavolo Roach, Hal Laurel and Hardy go across the country onthe back of a mule

Mule

Forrest Gump Zemeckis, Robert Forrest runs for three years across theU.S.A. accompanied by people

Race

Titanic Cameron, James Passengers of different social classes leaveon a ship for New York

Ship, harbor

Space Jam Pitka, Jo Michael Jordan gets on a spaceship toreach the baseball ground

Spaceship

A spasso nel tempo Vanzina, Carlo The protagonists leave by a time machineand they go into prehistory

Time machine

Ritorno di DonCamillo, Il

Duvivier, Julien The main character, a priest, takes a train Train Luggage

Harry Potter and thePhilosopher’s Stone

Columbus, Chris Harry returns home by train from Hogwarts Train

102 Dalmatians Lima, Kevin In a Paris railway station, some dogs are puton the train as baggage

Train, railway station Luggage

Don CamilloMonsignore . . .

Gallone Carmine Meeting of two old friends on a sleeping car Train, sleeping car

Jingwu men Wei, Lo A Chinese funeral and a martial arts fight Culture

example, a kiss in a rain forest or a battle in a city square, oran escape through a desert” (Aitken 1991, 106). The intentwas to maintain the people and environment link as shownby Aitken (1991). The clips were watched once again andwere put in a new table (Table 2). This task was helpfulto check whether pupils had understood what they hadstudied in the textbook and to retain the emotional impactof the plot. Moreover, this approach was useful for the nextstep.

Step 4. The Creative WorkIn any project the goal is the product emerging from the

work carried out. The products’ planning and making iscreative work needed both for long-lasting learning andfor critical awareness of the students. Students gathered

a large number of images and sequences, after which eachwas commented upon and analyzed. Together we covered avariety of themes, especially the difference between locationand place of reference. I had to work on these issues with agood measure of “grandmother” practicality—never throwanything away—but also in a literary and professional man-ner (Calvino 1979; Eco 1992 [1963]), by a selected reading tofish out the concepts on which to work on (Brusa 1985). Thisstage of the project was further subdivided into two steps.

I formed seven groups (step 4a), each with four pupils(homogeneous in gender, not in terms of ability). Eachgroup received the complete list of themes from the filmclips (Table 1 and 2). The groups were to choose sevenclips, which they then used to develop a new story, locatedin at least three different habitats. There were more than

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Table 2. Classification of film fragments.

Title Director Episode/Sequence Environment

Vita e bella, La Benigni, Roberto On a trip with a friend, the protagonist crossesTuscany by car

Fields (temperate belt)

Spider Man Raimi, Sam Spider Man, using a spiderweb, flies over theskyscrapers of New York

Big City

Peacemaker, The Leder, Mimi Two American secret agents meet a Russiancolonel in Vienna

Big City

Armageddon Bay, Michael The shuttle explosion gives rise to meteoriterain on New York

Big City

Non c’e due senzaquattro

Clucher, E. B. An aerial view of Rio de Janeiro and theexplosion of a Rolls Royce

Big City

Little Buddha Bertolucci, Bernardo Siddhartha comes out of his palace and for thefirst time sees his country and people

Big City

101 Dalmatians Herek, Stephen A Dalmatian drags his owner around the town Big CityMen in Black Sonnenfeld, Barry The skyline of New York Big CityIndependence Day Emmerich, Roland People escape from New York Big CityOut of Africa Pollack, Sidney In the course of a safari, a Danish baroness

falls in love with a young EnglishmanDamp savanna

Mission Joffe, Roland A missionary goes into the Amazonian forestwhere he meets South American Indians anda slave hunter

Equatorial forest

Gorillas in the Mist Apted, Michael Into the forests of Central Africa, a scholar,Diane Fossey, studies the gorilla’s habitat

Equatorial forest

Ace Ventura. WhenNature Calls

Oedekerk, Steve Ace Ventura takes a shortcut to the villageacross the forest

Equatorial forest

Anna and the King Tennant, Andy The King of Siam meets an English teacher Equatorial forestLord of the Rings, The

Part 1Jackson, Peter Frodo, a hobbit, goes with a friend into the

fields which surround his villageField (temperate belt)

Ciclone, Il Pieraccioni, Leonardo The protagonist goes across Tuscany bymotorcycle and meets grape farmers

Field (temperate belt)

Horse Whisperer Redford, Robert A ride across the hills of Montana Field (temperate belt)Secret Garden, The Holland, Agnieszka The spring season and the change of the

environmentField (temperate belt)

Lord of the Rings, ThePart 1

Jackson, Peter The characters cross icy mountains wherethere is a blizzard

Glaciers and polar deserts

Antarctica Kurahara, Koreyoshi Some inhabitants of Antarctica move out usingthe traditional sledges

Glaciers and polar deserts

Smilla’s Sense ofSnow

August, Bille An Inuit fishes between the ice, when anavalanche sweeps him away

Glaciers and polar deserts

Berg ruft, Der Trenker, Luis Competition between two groups to reach thepeak of a glacier

Glaciers and polar deserts

Cliffhanger Harlin, Renny An unsuccessful attempt to save a girl on a highmountain

Glaciers and polar deserts

Aladdin World Part, Michael Passage across a sandy desert on camels Hot desertMummy, The Sommers, Stephen Passage across a sandy desert to look for

treasureHot desert

Mummy, The - TheReturn

Sommers, Stephen The desert is changed into a luxurious forest bywitchcraft

Hot desert

Last Sunset, The Aldrich, Robert A meeting in a desert Hot desertEwok Adventure, The Korty, John A shuttlecraft crashes in a forest of an unknown

planet (Endor’s Moon); two parents look fortheir sons, but find giant monsters

Northern forest - conifer trees

Tutta colpa delparadiso

Nuti, Francesco The meeting with an ibex in a forest Northern forest - conifer trees

(Continued on next page)

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Table 2. Classification of film fragments. (Continued)

Title Director Episode/Sequence Environment

Far and Away Howard, Ron The pioneers competition to get a field in theWest

Prairies

Cosı e la vita AAVV Three men in a forest believe they are deadand ask "Where are we now?"

Temperate forest- Large-leaf trees

UnendlicheGeschichte, Die

Petersen, Wolfgang The protagonist, Atreyu, is pursued by theNothing in a foggy forest

Temperate forest- Large-leaf trees

Jurassic Park Spielberg, Steven A family visits a Pacific island inhabited byvicious animals

Tropical forest

Forrest Gump Zemeckis, Robert In the course of the Vietnam War, ForrestGump saves all his comrades

Tropical forest

Instinct Turteltaub, Jon A man is walking across a forest and he looksat the gorillas

Tropical forest

Tomorrow NeverDies

Spottiswoode, Roger Two secrets agents make preparation for amission in the Phi Phi Islands (Thai)

Tropical islands

Grinch, The Howard, Ron A green monster holds his friend, a little girl, ina sled for a run on the snow

Tundra

Ours, L’ Annaud, Jean-Jacques The life of a young bear in a forest Tundra

fifty movies on the list, but the same few titles were nearlyalways chosen. Some examples: Armageddon—the scene ofmeteorite rain on New York; Forrest Gump—the scene inthe Vietnam forest or Forrest Gump running across theU.S.A.; Lord of the Rings Part I; Harry Potter; and Titanic,in which the ship is always present. These films are all well-known internationally, but some less popular titles werealso chosen, for example: Der Berg ruft” 1938 (Germany),Director Luis Trenker; or Don Camillo Monsignore 1961(Italy), Director Carmine Gallone.

Each group wrote a plot and incorporated it into a briefscript (step 4b). I was concerned that this task would be toodifficult for the students because they had to mix togetherfragments from movies with different protagonists, times,locations, historical periods, and so on. Contrary to myfears, all groups finished their plot creation within an hour.After putting their plot on a story-board with the sketchesof the single scenes, the students were asked to place thelocations in a world map according to climatic belts. Themost important aspect from the viewpoint of geographicknowledge was the invention of a coherent story in termsof the places where the action took place. This involvedkeeping in mind the location and the portrayal of thesettings where the story unfolds and what can be seen.The use of an atlas and geographic knowledge are vital,not as abstract objectives (as when one is preparing for anexamination), but as tools necessary to create a concreteand examinable product (Bertocchi 1999, 56). For example,one group decided to mix two movie scenes, one locatedin Amazonia and the other in the Sahara Desert. Thismeant that they had to transform the Sahara Desert intothe Atacama Desert (nearer to Amazonia). However, ascamels (the transport in the latter scene) do not inhabit the

Atacama Desert, the students had to change this part of theplot.

Step 5. The MovieAlthough we ran out of time at the end of the year, here is

what we did accomplish. The students, with a great deal ofhelp from the director, worked together to decide the type ofcinematographic technique to adopt. Some groups chose toreuse film sequences by telling the story via an out-of-fieldnarrator. Others instead made a cartoon with simple specialeffects by preparing little models of terrestrial environments(a tropical island with fake trees or the Sahara Desert bytaking fine sand to school) in which puppets were made tomove slowly to create the desired effect in the editing phase.Others decided to become protagonists in a film shot in anarea near the school while ensuring that no elements thatwere extraneous to the environment in which the episodewas supposedly taking place appeared in the frame. Finally,one group simply envisaged telling the story over thecourse of a number of phone calls between classmates whohad been given the task of making a film. In each case, eachdifferent solution allowed the students to reveal some of thetricks, both great and small, which make fiction in cinemabelievable.

RESULTSAt the end of the experiment, I carried out a final check to

confirm that the students had clearly understood the char-acteristics and co-location of the different environmentsdealt with. This was a standard test in which pupils hadto draw, without using models, an entire world map withterrestrial climates and environments, and explain theirfeatures; out of twenty-eight pupils, only two tests were

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Table 3. Assessment levels for final check.

Assessment Scale Percentage Number of Students

Poor 50% 2Moderate 70–60% 7Good 80% 4Very Good 90% 5Excellent 100% 10

poor, seven were moderate, four good, five very good, andten excellent (Table 3 and Fig. 2).

Benefits for the students were: they acquired a goodknowledge of terrestrial environments and their collocationand distribution, as documented by a comparison of thescores in the two tests carried out; they focused on filmlocations, for example, on geographic sites and relatedhabitats; they improved their ability to connect facts andideas; they practiced a new and creative writing process.Last but not least, they enjoyed themselves a lot.

In general:

1. This teaching method facilitates longer-lastinglearning; the following year, after watching a filmon the French Resistance, the students of this classimmediately made reference to the environment in

Figure 2. Example of student map for the standardized test.

which the film was set, recognizing the habitat andplacing it on the correct geographic collocation.Students from the other classes however (whohad covered the same topics but in a moretraditional manner) were not able to make thesame observations.

2. This working method can be adapted to othergeographic purposes. One may change the con-tents and subject. For example, one can focus ona particular continent instead of the environment(a complex theme, here considered only from aphysical, geographical, and ecological point-of-view). In this case, the first step would be to builda concept map of the chosen continent and thehomework could be: “Bring me a film clip onAmerican physical features (mountains, people,cities, countries . . . ), or on the United States, itspeoples, traditions, cultures. . . . ”

3. It is adaptable. It is possible to change the steps,their order, or omit some of them. The reasonsmay depend on various factors: tools available,time constraints, and field of investigation. For ex-ample, with older students—sixteen- to eighteen-year-olds—we may also opt to work on theiremotive perceptions of landscape. In this case,one could start from a concept map based onthe emotions evoked by the landscape in the

film or directly by the stu-dents’ choice of film clips.Later, the students would beasked to tailor their emotionsto the story they put togetherfrom the chosen landscapes.The aim can be changingstereotypical imagery aboutcertain cities or some neigh-borhoods. In fact, this is ex-actly what film directors oftendo.

4. It is feasible and inexpen-sive. No particular techni-cal instruments are required.Videotapes or DVD players,monitors, and televisions areeasily found in all schoolsand most families, and mostteachers would be able to ex-plain the main features of cin-ematic language. If a studentshould not have this equip-ment, he or she could workwith a classmate or at school.Video forecasting and filmingwould remain an option. Ifthere are limitations because

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Teaching Geography Using Films

no one is able to shoot, frame, or edit, or there isno camera, simply writing the plot and creating thestory-board would be sufficient for the purposes ofthis work.

5. It is a very effective way to encourage studentsto research and study imagery and stereotypes.Three steps are particularly significant: (1) theinitial choice of film clips; (2) the choice of filmclips to be used in the plots; and (3) the plotsthemselves. For example, the meteorite rain onNew York City from Armageddon appeared in sixplots out of seven. This point highlights the extentto which the television scenes of September 11thaffected collective memory. All further comment isredundant.

APPENDIX

“Fugitives’ lives” (a plot).The explosion of a shuttle causes meteorite rain on New York City. It is necessary to escape! [from Armageddon—urban

landscape].We get on a ship that is sailing to the Caribbean Islands. Here we go through the equatorial forest, but the meteorites

reach here too. [from Forrest Gump—equatorial forest].One of us takes a jeep and goes to a harbor. [from Ace Ventura—equatorial forest].Again we get on a ship, this time going to Lima, Peru. From there, we cross the Cordillera on foot, we go across the

Titicaca Lake and we get to Nevado de Llampu, a peak higher than eight thousand meters. [from Der ruftberg—glaciers].

A magician stops us with his powers. [from Lord of the Rings—Glaciers].We win the game and we go down, but we make a mistake and we go on for a hundred kilometers until we see the

sea. We begin to go down, but we find ourselves in the Atacama Desert. [from The Mummy—hot desert].While crossing it, we run out of water and one of us dies and so there are three of us. On reaching Antofagasta, a little

town on the Pacific coast, we know the meteorite rain has stopped and we decide to go home by car. But in Rio deJaneiro the last meteorite fell from the sky and hit our car. [from Non c’e due senza quattro—travel by car].

We think we have survived because we are in a wood, but an angel explains to us the terrible reality. [from Cosı e lavita—temperate forest].

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