This paper is a lesson study of the instruction of China's Natural Resources (the third unit of eighth-grade geography), and its objective is to examine the efficacy of inquiry-based learning in geography education. In the experimental lesson, we reorganized the teaching content by integrating the learning materials from the four sections of…

Field trips, field courses, and other forms of field-based pedagogy have a long and storied history in geography and are frequently described as essential components of geographic education at the college, secondary, and primary levels. A recent and expanding literature on best practices for field-based geographical education provides instructors…

Applied geography represents the dialectic relationship between theory and application (Pacione 1999, 2004). A well-informed rigorous pedagogy must represent this dialectical relationship (Pacione 1999). How then can the relationship between the theoretical and the applied be challenged within the "spaces" of the university? I provide a…

With new standards in social science and science, student-centered inquiry drives contemporary geography education. This article introduces and explains the Geo-Inquiry Process. Developed by the National Geographic Society, the Geo-Inquiry Process centers on the fundamental nature of global interconnectedness, the idea that wise decisions at all…

Recruiting undergraduate students is a significant challenge for undergraduate geography programs. Few students have robust exposure to geography in secondary school and the major has low name recognition for entering first year students. In fact, geography is often a "found" major on many campuses with students coming to the major after…

Parramatta Marist High School is a school in Western Sydney, New South Wales, that has over 14 years of experience in project-based learning in Stages 4 and 5 (Years 7-10). Over this period, projects have been constantly developed, redeveloped and improved by teachers based on their experience and feedback from their colleagues and their students.…

The field of geography especially lends itself to fieldwork, getting students out of the classrooms and into the real world. Furthermore, studies have shown that when traditional lecture style is replaced at least in part with approaches that incorporate active learning, students earn higher examination grades and have a greater chance of passing…

As the popularity of project-based learning grows, so does the importance of understanding how this instructional approach can support students' learning and development. The authors describe a project-based approach to literacy and social studies instruction that research has shown to be effective. Key characteristics of the approach and…

Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) has risen up the global advocacy agenda and is recognized as an important child-safeguarding issue. The topic crystallizes key debates in my module, "Culture and Development in Africa," and enables Geography undergraduates to explore complex intersections of childhood, gender, sexuality, and…

World regional geography is one of the most popular and most heavily subscribed geography courses in the United States at both the undergraduate and K-12 levels (Rutherford 2001; Mueller 2003; Bednarz 2004). Yet little consensus exists about the content that the course should include or the approach that should be used to teach it. Debate exists…

Sustainability is an important topic of discussion in geography as society faces increasing challenges from depletion of natural resources and degradation of the natural environment (Yates 2012; Goudie 2013). A primary goal of educators is to prepare students to address complex issues such as these in their personal lives and professional careers.…

Faced with diminished faculty resources and increased student enrolment from 2010 to 2017, we sought to use blended learning to achieve active learning in a large c.400-student introductory geography class. Working iteratively over seven years and eight classes and using smart classrooms, better timetabling, experimentation with peer review and…

Media are the arena where the discursive struggle over identities, cultures and geographies is carried out. Media organize our ways of thinking and acting vis-à-vis our ideas and perceptions of "us" and of "others." With the proliferation of participative information technology, (young) media users reinforce or challenge media…

This paper examines the role played by a student-organized research conference in the age of research-led teaching and active learning. Drawing on our experiences of organizing two departmental conferences in Geography in March 2016 and March 2017, we begin to outline how institutional support and funding for student-led "Changemakers"…

This article introduces the fifty states project, a year-long study of the United States that uses crowd sourcing to bring authentic materials into the social studies classroom. The project started five years ago, when author Kelly McPherson decided that she wanted to have a care package sent from all 50 states to help students learn about the…