They suggest an example of toponyms in the Valencia Garden for teaching social sciences

This methodology will be added to the social science curriculum for the teaching degree as a teaching aid. In the case of UV, it will be used in “Social Science Education. Applied Aspects”, a subject taught in the fourth year of a teaching degree, which is moreover one of the only two geography subjects.

Alvaro Morrotti, Professor in the Department of Experimental and Social Sciences Education, and Juan Carles Membrado, from the Department of Geography, give for example its application in the northern Valencia grove, specifically the regions of Tarunger, La Carasca, and Penimaclete. This proposal will be complemented by outings through these sites where their toponyms will be discussed and used to explain the origin and present of the Valencia grove.

They assert that this type of teaching has already been used in countries such as the United States, Canada or Australia, where they have entire databases of national toponyms. This knowledge is used “as a supplementary resource for regional analysis and is open to use as a didactic tool in the teaching and learning processes of the social sciences,” according to the researchers in their article published in Vegueta. Yearbook of the Faculty of Geography and History of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

The proposal arises from the conviction that an understanding of the past and present of studied geography helps to understand and assimilate it, and “can serve […] To teach the social sciences using a heritage resource and linking it to any region.” In this way, the toponyms will serve as a learning resource in the education of future primary school teachers.

field work

The published study shows the city’s name inherited from the Latin word valens and the suffix -entis (which has value); Towns like al-Buriah, which arose in al-Bureij (small tower) because its origin was a guard post; the neighborhood of Benimaclet, who descended from the “Mahlad family” (Ibn Mahled), the owners of the first farm in the area; or Algirós, which comes from the Arabic word for acequia (al-jarux). It also gives an idea of ​​the nomenclature of the irrigation system inherited from the Islamic era through all the toponyms of irrigation canals and arms such as Escamarda, Rams or l’Arquet.