This is the first in a series of six articles about how spatial reasoning can help children "read" maps, graphs, and geographic texts. Since the late 1900s, neuroscientists and psychologists have used new brain-scanning and eye-tracking technologies to do a "lot" of research about visual perception and spatial thinking. One key…

Michael Young's concept of "powerful knowledge" has received widespread attention from many in geographical education. I use the claims Young has made about powerful knowledge as a starting point for considering how pedagogic practices could contribute to making geographical education powerful. I present three sets of pedagogic…

This article describes a data-driven approach to contextualize geography subject matter using student aspirations and workforce data. To test this teaching strategy, undergraduate students in two world geography courses taught at Texas State University were surveyed and interviewed about their career and life aspirations. Using this information,…

This research analyses the way in which the Lotus Blossom technique has been described and used worldwide, including Romania and it investigates several ways to apply it based on the geographic content. Based on analysing the way this technique was applied it has been found that it may be applied to various topics, both individually and in groups,…

This paper is based on an experiment conducted in 2019 at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, as part of a post-graduate research course, that aimed to reflect on the methodologies used by geographers when (re)searching (for) emotions. This methodological question is crucial since it is partly because of the difficulty of finding relevant tools…

"Cuerpo-territorio" is a method stemming from Latin American geography, which recognizes the centrality of situated and embodied experiences as a form of knowing. We engaged with this method in the classroom to understand how students through their embodied and situated experiences had absorbed a post-development geographic course…

Sports mega-events offer rich and varied opportunities for educating students on key concepts defining geographical ways of thinking. Concept-learning, central to students' development, can be enhanced by issue-based enquiries that enable them to personalise and apply concepts in meaningful and memorable ways. A diverse range of activities…

This paper discusses how geography's disciplinary ways of thinking can equip teachers "to organize deep geographical learning" about sustainable development in their students. These ways of thinking are based on the subject's core concepts, and the ones selected for discussion in this paper are environment, interconnection and place. The…

This essay reviews and builds upon Aníbal Quijano's contribution to decolonial theory to sketch out what I refer to as the geopolitics and coloniality of curriculum, broadly understood as an imperial doctrine and a pedagogical mode of domination aimed at producing a modern/colonial subjectivity. It argues that the geopolitics and coloniality of…

The basics of climate must be understood to have a climate literate populace. Understanding climatic change is a wicked problem. This work identifies three foundational content challenges to climate and climate change education, discusses them thoroughly, and offers graphics and conceptual models to address this content in the classroom. The three…

When the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) program releases its reports on student achievement in various subjects, the data are added to the NAEP Data Explorer (NDE) website. The NDE has been shown to support reflective educational practices in the social studies. Working with assessment data can stimulate ideas for how teachers…

A key desired learning outcome of higher education is that students understand the complexities and contexts of, as well as the multiple disciplinary perspectives on, the subjects they are studying. Geography higher education has been particularly adept at meeting this objective. Geographers have played key roles in the development of…

Space is the product of spatial and social relations (Massey 2005). Educators are constantly moving in and out of physical or virtual spaces in classrooms. In geography education particularly, space is integral to teaching and learning. For example, students situate spatial knowledge within social contexts to make sense of geographical concepts…

Until now, geography teaching has only touched upon the way in which students write argumentations focused on geographical topics, and the challenges of doing this. In order to shed light on this process, this study considers the problems and challenges students face when using material-based written argumentation in geography lessons. The results…

Despite numerous efforts to improve geographical teacher training, student teachers often develop inert theoretical knowledge during their studies. Teachers' deeply rooted implicit orientations concerning geography classes, which are important for future classroom practice and professional learning at university, are a major reason for the theory…