Fieldwork in urban geography courses can encourage reflexivity among students regarding the cities they encounter. This article outlines how student reflexivity was encouraged within a new international field research course in Singapore and Malaysia. Drawing on examples from students' field exercises written during an intensive and occasionally…

A common geography curriculum for Australian schools was approved in May 2013. This paper describes the conceptual and philosophical foundations of the curriculum through a discussion of its definition of geography, selection of concepts, integration of skills into the process of inquiry, and specification of learning about countries and…

This article provides an insight into the development of primary geography since the inception of the national curriculum in England in the late 1980s. It is hoped this is informative as the "Australian Curriculum: Geography Foundation to Year 12" is introduced to and implemented in primary schools. It draws out various matters which…

In this article, the author offers some practical support for teaching about weather, climate and climate change. In England, weather and climate are traditionally taught within the geography curriculum, although it is actually a very scientific subject, involving skills such as making careful observations and measurements, interpreting data…

Spatial thinking is fundamental to the practice and theory of geography, however there are few valid and reliable assessment methods in geography to measure student performance in spatial thinking. This article presents the development and evaluation of a geospatial thinking assessment instrument to measure participant understanding of spatial…

The author looks at subject-field disputes about what to teach in the field of social studies in the U.S. He identifies the selection of subject matter to teach as a first source of conflict about the field's nature given the scope of history, geography, and other social sciences. The author argues that disagreements about what and how to…

This article discusses the process and findings of a study in which video annotation (VideoANT) and a learning management system (LMS) were implemented together in the microteaching lessons of fourth-year geography student teachers. The aim was to ensure adequate assessment of and feedback for each student, since these aspects are, in general, a…

Research has shown that although teachers' knowledge about the subject or pedagogy is important, a teacher's professional vision (including their perceptions and pedagogical decisions) can also have a significant impact on the efficacy of their practice. Firmly grounded in the long-standing field of teacher professional vision research, this…

This article reports on the possibilities and challenges of starting problem-oriented learning in geography lessons. The article focuses on the features of motivating problems, because one of the essential functions of the problem to start with is to animate learners to solve it. The analysis of various introductions to problem-oriented learning…

Education for sustainable development (ESD) persists as an important concept within international policy and yet, despite considerable debate, there remains a lack of consensus as to a pedagogy for ESD in schools. This paper presents findings from a study investigating how an interdisciplinary approach to ESD in England developed one class of 16-…

Mathematical modeling, a practice standard in the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) (CCSSI 2010), is a process by which students develop and use mathematics as a tool to make sense of the world around them. Students investigate a real-world situation by asking mathematical questions; along the way, they need to decide how to use…

Landscape interpretation is needed for navigating and determining an orientation: with traditional cartography, interpreting 3D topographic information from 2D landform representations to get self-location requires spatial orientation skill. Augmented reality technology allows a new way to interact with 3D landscape representation and thereby…

This article explores the possible relationships between geography, literacy, pedagogy, and poverty. It characterizes poverty as a wicked problem, which sees economic inequality escalating in a number of neoliberal democracies. Key insights from theorists of economic inequality are summarized. The enduring nature of poverty in particular places is…

The project "3D and 4D Simulations for Landscape Reconstruction and Damage Scenarios: GIS Pilot Applications" has been devised with the intention to deal with the demand for research, innovation and applicative methodology on the part of the international programme, requiring concrete results to increase the capacity to know, anticipate…

This column discusses resources and science topics related to students in grades preK to 2. In this month's issue students study landscape surfaces to recognize changes due to human impacts or natural phenomena.