Main purpose of this paper is to make clear the development of children's spacial cognition from the view point of the perceived amount in the open field.
There are many fore-running studies on this theme, however, most of them are done in the experimented laboratories under the condition of limited factors of psychology.
The auther tried to study especially on the perceived amount of herizontal and vertical distance which shape basic conception for space in the open field.
The investigation made for the children of grade 3 to 6 and 8, concerning their perceived amount on horizontal and vertical distance of 2m, 10m, and some ten meters.
The results are follows.
In the case of distance of 2m, the correct perceived amount have already been developed at grades 3, both in horizontal and vertical.
In the case of 10m, the accuracy of their perceived amount increase with age: in the horizontal distance, the dispersion between grades is small, but they perceived somewhat shorter: on the vertical distance they developed their accuracy at grade 6, and completely at grade 8.
The case of some ten meters, the perceived amount on horizontal, distance increased dramatically with grade. At grade 6, they acquire the accuracy on the average and at grade 8, dispersion disappears mostly. However, in the case of vertical, they perceived it somewhat longer, in general. Though their dispersion is large at grade 5, but it diminishes at grade 6, and acquire the exact perceived amount on the vertical distance at grade 5, but it diminishes at grade 8.
It is possible to schimatize the results as follows.
1) For children there could be seen the tendency of synchronism in devlopment of perceived amount on horizontal and vertical distance.
2) They develope horizonal cognition more easily than vertical one.
3) In the case of horizontal distance, they are apt to perceive it shorter than actual distance, and in vertical case, they perceive it longer and also the error is larger in general.
4) Perceived amount develope speedily at grade 5 and 6, and their development is sufficiently achieved at grade 8, on both horizontal and vertical distance.

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The courses of studies for elementary, secondary and high school were revised from 1977. In this revision, for high school, “Geography A” (systematic geography) and “Geography B” (regional geography) were united into one subject, which became an elective under the new curriculum. At the same time new subject “Modern society” was newly-established. Since then, the aims, contents and methods of geography or social studies teaching in the new circumstances were discussed and proposed actively. This was accelerated by the introductions of geography teaching reforms and new geography in the foreign countries, for example U. K., West Germany, U. S. A.. How-ever, it should be pointed out that these discussions and proposals are mainly concerned with the mothodologies. So, it should be necessary to examine the contents as well as the methods.
The aim of geography teaching should consist of three elements, the development of social or international understanding, the development of comprehension and the aquisition of facts. The main element is social or international understanding. On the premise above mentioned, the purpose of the present papar is to clarify the learning conditions based on information through questionnaires and analisis of textbooks, to propose some teaching points in case of U. S. S. R. in high school geography.
The results are as follows:
(1) Before learing, although pupils understand for themseleves that U. S. S. R. is not a well-known country or region, the most of them have built the clear images of it with value judgements.
(2) And, the average number of the facts about U. S. S. R. which pupils have known are 4.6 items par capita. But, they are not always understood properly. Main channels of information are school education (57.4%) and mass-communication (27.6%). However, the latter channel contributes to the imagebuilding of the country more than the above proportion.
(3) Textbooks contain explanations of historical aspects, but, in them citations of terms and concepts, misuses of them, for example, “Kombinat” are found. They refer less to the shortcomings and problems of the industrial development in U. S. S. R. than to those in the other countries.
Proposed teaching points with their content are:
(a) “spatial noncoincidence of labor and raw materials” as a main regional framework,
(b) “emphasis on regionl variaties”, concentrating attention on spatial discrepancies in living conditions,
(c) and “planning and region” which deals with the relation between socio-economic plannings and regions.

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[in Japanese]

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