The purpose of the present study is to clarify the relationship among spatial recognition of heavy snow area, degree of understanding in the physical process of heavy snow, and related social matters. In this study, questionnaire survey was conducted in June of 2005 for 188 second-grade students of junior high school in Tokyo. The students-considered heavy snow areas are traced on a map over Far East in and around Japan. The students have not learned about snowfall area over Asian continent.
As the first step, the students-considered heavy snow areas are classified into five patterns by using cluster analysis. These patterns include (I) large part of the northern area of Far East, (II) northeastern part of Far East, (III) Asian continent and coastal area of all Japanese archipelago, (IV) maritime area in and around Japan, and (V) coastal area of the Sea of Japan. The last pattern (V) corresponds to actual heavy snow area, and is regarded as appropriate structure of spatial recognition.
As for the students who answered appropriate heavy snow area, the most of them know accurate physical process of heavy snow, that is, the formation process of heavy snow area related to the northwest winter monsoon from the Asia continent and the orographic effects of mountain ranges. Moreover, the ratio of students who know concrete social matters such as building structure and extinguish facility of snow is also higher than other students. On the contrary, the ratio of students who made vague answer on the physical process and social matter is large in the category of spatial recognition that do not correspond to the actual heavy snow area. Furthermore, the ratio of students' answer on the information acquisition process, the knowledge of the physical process/social matter, and the respective spatial recognition patterns are examined statistically. As a result, the relationship between the answer of heavy snow area and the knowledge of physical process/social matter are regarded as statistically significant at the 1% level.
In addition, characteristics of the students with the spatial recognition that corresponds to the actual heavy snow area are analyzed. The students who answered only the concrete social matters, spatial recognition of the heavy snow area is due to specific memory and observation of the social matters. These social matters are grasped by visiting the heavy snow area and watching/listening through the mass media. On the other hand, the students who understand the accurate physical process of heavy snow can draw the correct heavy snow area even through they have not learned about snowfall area. They deduced the heavy snow area from the wind direction of winter monsoon and location of mountain ranges. Therefore, the physical processes of natural phenomenon have transfer effects of knowledge to other geographical phenomena.
It is concluded that the physical process of natural phenomenon is important for grasping not only its spatial structure but also other regional characteristics in the geographical learning.
