While modern educational practices tend to emphasize conceptual learning over memorization of facts, geography is one of those fields where some memorization is needed. Lessons with the aim of memorizing facts, like the names of countries or rivers, should incorporate tricks and short cuts like songs or mnemonic devices. These help student frame the raw information they learn in a way that is easy to remember, creates a long-lasting memory, and can be easily accessed. One example of an easy-to-remember shortcut is the mnemonic device, "Big Gorillas Eat Hotdogs Not Cold Pizza," which helps students remember the seven countries of Central America: Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama:
If students don't know what the word plateau means, chances are they will not be able to remember what the Tibetan Plateau is. This kind of terminology is just as important to geography as state names and map coordinates. Lesson plans on geographical terminology should focus on imagery of the actual landmasses in question, rather than more simple to understand illustrations from a textbook. Concrete pictures not only let students understand how these terms relate to things in the real world, they inspire motivation to learn by stirring up students' imaginations.
Maps are the ultimate practical application of geography -- they tell people trying to to get to a certain location where they they need to go and what they can expect to encounter on the way there. Lesson plans on map reading should emphasize both the ability interpret maps in the abstract and on applying to these skills to large-scale, real world maps. For example, a lesson could use an abstract map to teach student the concept of using a key to find a map's scale of inches to miles and then have student use these skills to find the land distance between Lahore and Karachi in Pakistan on a map of the Indian Sub-Continent.
Geography has greatly effected the course of human cultural and social development. For sixth graders, one effective way to teach lessons on the effect of geography on history is through the use of stories. For example, by telling the story of a young man growing up in the prehistoric middle east, you could show how the geography of the Fertile Crescent allowed early peoples to switch their mode of life from hunting and gathering to farming.