This exercise has been designed as an individual self-study experience but can easily be adapted for classroom use.

The entire series of pages can be downloaded (using a program like WebGraber available to educators free from Microsoft) and used on a classroom PC equipped with a Netscape browser. The set of files involved fits on a single 3 1/2" floppy disk; if duplicated, any number of students could work with the exercise simultaneously.

Given an appropriately equipped classroom, the exercise might become a shared experience if projected for the class to view and discuss together.

• Under such circumstances, the classroom instructor might wish to convey verbally the introductory content found on the initial two pages and begin directly with the first viewing of the image set.

• Duplicate the Written Exercise portion of the larger exercise and distribute it to the class to complete as individual desk work.

• Follow the second viewing of the images with a discussion utilizing the points made in the pages at the conclusion covering Findings and Insights.

• On the basis of my own personal experience, such an approach should be completed in approximately forty-five minutes of class time.

In addition to the web site links listed at the conclusion of this exercise, several other internet-based resources tied to the introduction of Japanese geography and/or visual literacy can be found on the World Wide Web.

The Smithsonian Institution's online version of its teaching resource publication ART-TO-ZOO, for example, includes a series of three lesson plans geared to elementary students entitled JAPAN: IMAGES AND WORDS; these deal with both geography and the use of art works as information sources. Links to brief discussions of Japanese geography and geology (especially volcanos) can be located on the IRASSHAI LAUNCH PAD, a useful general resource for information on Japan developed as part of a distance learning course curriculum by Georgia Tech.

An extensive curriculum unit on Japan, including an overview discussion of learning objectives related to Japan's physical and historical setting tied to particular thematic objectives can be found at the East Asian Studies Center site at Indiana University.

KidsWeb discusses "Nature and Climate" in Japan and provides a clickable map of the various geographical regions into which the country is divided, together with brief descriptions of each area's special chacteristics. The National Geographic Society's maps of Japan as seen from space and listing important place names are also useful resources to consult.

The linked biography of the woodblock print artist Hiroshige provided with this exercise is from a Web site maintained by Jim Breen at Monash University in Australia. Breen is perhaps best known in the Internet community for his work on a Japanese - English on-line dictionary. Another briefer biography of Hiroshige can be found at the site maintained by the WebMuseum in Paris.

The portrait of the artist and image captions used in the second viewing of the print images are adapted from Hiroshige's World, a profusely illustrated catalog of a Special Exhibition of the artist's prints devoted to the Fifty-Three Stages of the Tokaido and One Hundred Famous Views of Edo held in Nagoya, Japan, in the early Summer of 1991 and sponsored by the Nagoya City Museum and The Money Museum of the Tokai Bank.

The images used in this exercise originally appeared in a special volume devoted to Hiroshige's Fifty-Three Stages of the Tokaido published by Heibonsha as part of a Japanese language Masterpieces of the World multivolumed art encyclopedia set appearing in 1960.

To explore the Japanese woodblock tradition further, begin with the page devoted to that topic found in ...About Japan, a Web page maintained by Lee A. Makela, the creator of this exercise.

For a succinct discussion of Japanese geography and its influences on Japanese culture and civilization, see "Part One: The Setting" in Edwin O. Reischauer, The Japanese Today: Change and Continuity (Belnap Press, 1988), pages 2 - 36.