The teacher of geography can arouse enthusiasm of the pupils by skillfully using the maps and globes and their knowledge of the world gradually increases.
The duty of the teacher is to teach pupils how to locate places and to feel that such places really exist. The pupils should be led to see that globes and maps are not merely brightly colored objects, but they are sources of information about the world we live in.
The children should be taught to rely upon maps and globes for geographical information’s. In fact, globes and maps tell much about the earth. The teacher should create interest in the pupils to read maps and globes as they are made to read understandingly the printed pages of the geography text books.
A flat map may represent a part of whole of the earth approximately, but it can never represent the earth accurately. But it is virtually impossible to keep all the qualities of a spherical earth correct on a flat surface of a map.
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For example, on a Mercator’s projection, Greenland looks larger than South American, although the former is much smaller. The true areas and shapes are represented on a globe. However, there are some tropics which can be taught better by means of a globe.
There are others which require maps for better understanding. But there are still others, which require both globes and maps. Such topic as the location and size of the continents and oceans, rotation and its effects, revolution and its effects, longitude and latitude, ocean currents, winds, tides, trade routes and the polar regions can only be taught satisfactorily by the globe.