Results are presented of a series of focus-group sessions held at Lancaster University during May 2002. Participants consisted of 12 undergraduate geography students chosen from amongst those identified as having strong antipathy towards quantitative material. The intention was to mine these students' perspectives on courses covering quantitative…

After more than a decade of funding from the "National Geographic Society," questions have increasingly been raised about the effectiveness of geographic alliances as vehicles for professional development in geographic education. This study explores the impact of participation in a summer institute on teacher beliefs and practices in…

The results of an informal survey to uncover the diversity of existing programmes in GIScience are presented. The survey was an activity of the Distance Education Working Group within the Education Committee of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS), a consortium of 61 US research universities from 37 states whose…

Hong Kong styles itself as "the city that never sleeps", "the ever changing city". The dynamism and pace of change in teacher education, however, has to be seen as laggardly in comparison. This is not to say there has been no experiment but changes have been piecemeal and "add-ons". Teacher education in Hong Kong has…

Geography as a subject is surviving quite well in Queensland. It is holding its own in an increasingly crowded curriculum. More importantly, many students of Geography across the state are engaging in interesting and worthwhile Geography courses. They are not only learning some Geography "content", they are learning important life-long…

Ongoing media coverage of the dangers of fieldwork and guidance from some teacher unions is placing fieldwork under threat in many English primary schools. Most teachers believe that fieldwork experiences are a valuable part of geographical learning, but how do children actually articulate the understanding arising from this? The research took…

The EU offers opportunities to schools - within the Comenius Programme - to develop and implement specific studies in which pedagogical, lingual and science-oriented objectives can be internationally combined if schools from at least three European countries are ready to share in a common project. Geography seems to be especially suited for such…

There are major themes in geography, which all teachers should incorporate into the social studies. These themes assist students to organize information and relate relevant ideas. Teachers need to study and experiment with using a set of structural ideas to facilitate student learning. Otherwise, learning may comprise of isolated facts, concepts,…

Students often ask whether the examples we give as instructors have any relevance to their worlds, to their lives. Too often the answer is no. This paper describes a case that is obviously pertinent to both secondary and university students and their instructors. The legal battle over equality and racial discrimination in the New York City School…

Since its inception in the early 1990s, geographic information science and its related technology, geographic information systems (GIS), have diffused slowly into select groups of K-12 classrooms worldwide. The technology has not been adopted at a rate commensurate with expectations. The purpose of this article is to explore GIS implementation by…

In the technological world of the Twenty-first Century, students must be information literate. They must have the skills to access, evaluate, and utilize information needed in their undergraduate experience and in their future endeavors. It is important for Geography majors to acquire these skills as part of their undergraduate education. At an…

This paper presents a review of geographic curricula, teaching methods, materials and assessments in Turkish high schools. Geopolitics and political instability have contributed to large fluctuations in emphasis on geography in Turkish education and have also affected the content of the geography curriculum.

Statistical and geographical literacy is essential for our daily lives. A new web portal for middle school students, published on the federal government statistics website, supports geographic and statistical education by providing age-appropriate online learning activities that teach how to use statistical summaries and their graphic…

Vision and mission statements are the foundation for the types of undergraduate degrees departments confer as well as other types of academic programs such as pre-major, certificate, and distance education curricula. Critical to each department should be careful administration of course selections and offerings and management of academic majors,…

Christensen defined a disruptive innovation or technology as one that eventually takes over the existing dominant technology in the market, despite the fact that the disruptive technology is both radically different to the leading technology and often initially performs worse than the leading technology according to existing measures of…