Transformative Geography: Ethics and Action in Elementary and Secondary Geography Education

Abstract

Geographic ethics are profoundly important if students are expected to be stewards of the earth and responsible citizens whose decisions about the environment will affect our planet's future. The proposed framework, founded in geography but applicable to other subject areas, guides students to moral decisions for the well-being of the planet and its people so that geographic skills will be applied for beneficial purposes. It is in the tradition of Kropotkin, Dewey, and Freire and introduces Nel Noddings' concept of caring to geography education. This proposed framework for the elementary and secondary levels is called transformative geography.     

Theory and Research in Geography Education

Abstract

Interim semester field trips provide a unique opportunity for undergraduate students to collect field data in support of their capstone research experience. We encourage students to participate in collaborative research projects prior to the semester for which they enroll in the capstone course. Students select a research project based on a field trip itinerary, submit a research proposal to faculty, conduct preliminary research prior to departure and collect data in the field during a January “Winterim” course. During the spring semester, students continue laboratory research, incorporating data collected in the field to complete their research project and prepare scientific presentations. Field trips provide an inherent mentoring system whereby faculty interact with students, and underclass students collaborate on capstone research projects. This approach facilitates learning by emphasizing preparation and planning, collaborative learning and integration of classroom knowledge into field research.     

Bridging Geography and Education for Sustainable Development: A Korean Example

There is an apparent disconnect between geography and education for sustainable development (ESD), with geography underrepresented in publications and curricula related to sustainability though the discipline embraces the need to foment positive change. To bridge this schism, this article introduces advances in education for sustainable development (ESD-2) and a three-dimensional key competence-based model that can be deployed in tandem with economic geography theory. Deploying the theme of solar PV in Korea, a competency-based lesson planning exercise is presented to demonstrate the potential for this learning paradigm to generate agency and empower change for a sustainable future.     

Recent Trends in Geography Education in Louisiana

Geography at elementary and middle schools in Louisiana, USA., remains a social studies strand along with civics, economics, and history, with no state-required geography course at any level. But because schools may require more geography than the state standard, this research examines the extent to which K–12 students are exposed to geography in Louisiana, using an electronic survey and an interview with state department of education officials. Results suggest that geography remains underemphasized, but the 2011 implementation of new social studies standards, the Advanced Placement Human Geography course, and other initiatives offer promise for more geographically literate Louisiana citizens.     

自然地理学的大数据研究

大数据给科学研究带来了机遇与挑战,但针对自然地理学的研究很少.基于此,该文结合大数据理念,立足自然地理学特点,分析了自然地理学的大数据源、大数据研究方法及相关变革.认为自然地理研究中的大数据源主要包括遥感大数据、地面传感器数据、自发地理信息和地理成果累积数据,对地观测、自动感知和自发地理信息是其主要生产方式.自然地理的大数据研究方法重点在地理信息科学的升级与变革,集中在数据-信息-知识的处理过程中.大数据背景下自然地理研究将向数据密集型范式转变,地理研究将实现新的综合,应用性地理学得到发展,研究队伍结构更加多元化,众包研究成为新的方式.要在自然地理研究中充分合理地使用大数据,还需要数据开放与共享政策的支撑,同时有必要开展大数据地理学研究.     

The Evolution and Research Trends of Port Geography

Despite the long existence of port geography research, there has been no systematic investigation on its evolution and research trends. Hence, through investigating 155 port geography articles featured in geography journals between 1956 and 2011, this article studied the evolution and research trends of port geography. The article argues that port geography had gradually evolved from a secondary and encyclopedic subdiscipline within transport and human geographies to a primary and specialized one. Such a trend had blurred its “geographicalness,” however, with port geography moving toward the more applied and interdisciplinary transportation. The article also indicates that further research would be required to understand the communication between port geography and other disciplines, as well as philosophical and epistemological issues.     

Problem-Oriented Learning in Geography Education: Construction of Motivating Problems

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 of geographic topics in primary schools shows that generating a cognitive dissonance is highly suitable for inducing a desire to learn. As a motivating role relative to the problem, the helper and expert roles were seen as being ideal.     

Preservice Geography Education

Abstract

Improving preservice education, especially geography preservice education, is difficult because few geography faculty understand the teacher education process, many education professors who prepare geography teachers are not geographically well-educated, education and geography faculties do not communicate effectively, and efforts by alliances and other organizations have focused on inservice teachers, for the most part. Recommendations to improve preservice education in geography are offered. The authors argue that none of these recommendations should be implemented without considering its relationship with all of the components of the geography education system.     

物流地理学研究进展与展望

以国内地理学视角物流活动研究为基础,梳理了中国物流地理学的发展脉络和理论进展。通过文献研究方法,分析了国内物流地理学的研究背景,对主要研究领域进行了综述,进一步理清了地理学研究与物流学研究的边缘学术衔接点,映射了20 年来中国学术背景下的物流地理学的研究进展和规律,列举出了各研究板块的代表性文献,对国内物流地理学研究的深化开辟了新的理论途径。研究表明,中国学术界物流地理研究宏观属性相对明显,地理学视角研究极大地丰富了物流活动研究的理论基础和方法论体系,已形成了物流运输地理研究、区域物流地理研究、港口场站物流地理研究、物流地理信息系统研究和物流地理综合性方法论研究等主要研究板块。最后,依托国内物流地理学研究的基本态势和现实经济社会发展的需求,探讨了未来中国物流地理学研究的基本趋向。     

Geographic Education and Careers in Geography

Abstract

Disciplinary concern with career options and opportunities has fluctuated over the years. Not surprisingly, geography continues to be incorrectly stereotyped as a field of study offering limited employment prospects. While geographic education has long focused on content, it must also embrace the importance of educating instructors, students, and career counselors concerning how the field opens doors to viable careers. This article presents a program that can be implemented by college and university departments to raise awareness and disseminate information about career opportunities in geography. The program emphasizes an integrated approach that includes partnerships with alumni, campus placement offices, and employers.     

Geography Education: The Glass Is Half Full and It's Getting Fuller

This article examines the recent progress of geography education as an academic subfield of geography and as an area of activity in K–12 education. Challenges to both endeavors are described. A restructuring of geography education's research program that focuses on spatial thinking and reasoning and merges applied and theoretical research is proposed.     

Toward a Typology of Changes in Primary Teachers' Awareness of Geography Based on Receiving Graduate Education

This study illuminates the effects of graduate education on primary teachers' awareness of geography. Data were collected through interviews with twenty-one teachers who held M.A. or Ph.D. degrees in geography and analyzed using Straussian-grounded theory. The participants were categorized into four types. Many teachers (type A) showed meaningful refinement in their awareness of geography, and some of them (type B and C) identified themselves as experts in primary geography. However, a few participants (type D) showed only marginal development of their geographic knowledge. These results suggest the potential for improvements to graduate education in primary geography and for primary teachers.     

The Comparison of a Thematic versus Regional Approach to Teaching a World Geography Course

The benefits of a regional or thematic approach to the study and presentation of world geography have long been debated. The goal to not to reimagine these debates or to promote one approach over another; the aim is to explore how world geography courses are currently being taught in American universities. By polling and sharing information about course structures, topics, and forms of evaluation, an open dialogue between instructors that will improve teaching strategies and student comprehension is encouraged.     

IRBs as Asset for Ethics Education in Geography

This article frames the research ethics review process conducted by institutional review boards (IRBs) as an opportunity to enrich the education of geographers. Student participation in the IRB process enhances the education of geographers at the undergraduate and graduate levels in two key ways. Geographers can use participation in this process to demonstrate the relevance of a disciplinary code of ethics to professional practice. More important, such participation helps learners, particularly novices, conceptualize research as an ongoing process of intentional inquiry, in which the protection of research participants is vigilantly observed.     

Early Instruction in Geography: An Exploration in the Ecology of Kindergarten and First-Grade Geography Education

Abstract

Student drawn maps have been relatively neglected as an evaluation tool, despite their potential utility for assessing geographic knowledge. Comparison of students' sketch maps at the beginning and end of the year can inform the teacher about how students' representations of the world change over the course of instruction. Used as a pretest, they can be used to diagnose areas of strength and weakness within a class; as a posttest they can be used to assess students' achievement and the effectiveness of instruction. In this paper we provide an easy method for sorting and summarizing sketch map data, which is illustrated using maps collected from two sixth grade classes. We also outline a framework to guide teachers in generating questions to ask about their own students' maps.     

Navigating to Multiple Horizons: Toward a Geography of Ocean-Space

While the ocean traditionally has attracted little attention within geography, we are now entering an era when marine research is increasingly technologically feasible and, at the same time, human interactions with ocean-space are ever more intense and complex. In response to these changes, a number of geographers ranging from critical development theorists to scholars of global environmental change to biogeographers have turned their attention to the study of marine areas. This article (and the articles that follow in this focus section) brings the ocean to the attention of human and physical geographers, both as an object of study in its own right and as a space for interpreting global social and physical processes and developing geographic techniques that span the land-sea divide.     

全球化背景下的《世界地理》教育教学改革探索

《世界地理》是一门从自然和人文相结合的角度认识世界的区域科学,是地理学科的重要组成部分。随着全球化的持续发展、当代地理学科发展呈现新趋势及我国素质教育改革的不断深入,我国高校《世界地理》教育教学面临着严峻的挑战。因此,《世界地理》课程必须从教学思想、教学目标、教学计划、教材体系、教学手段和教学评价等方面进行全方位的改革,才能摆脱目前严重滞后于时代和学科发展的困境,以走上健康发展之路。     

日本经济地理学的发展、研究动态及其借鉴

日本经济地理学始于20世纪20年代后期。自1954年日本经济地理学会创立以来,经济地理学先后经历了起步阶段、发展阶段和转换阶段。在起步阶段,区位理论和区域经济地理成为经济地理学研究的重点;在发展阶段,主要是致力于发展独自的理论,地域构造论和地域经济论成为经济地理学研究的主要内容;而在转换阶段,主要是引进欧美经济地理学的最新成果,经济空间系统论成为研究的主要内容。日本经济地理学在全球化、信息化以及人文化的背景下,在研究方法论上和研究内容上均发生很大变化,主要体现为如下五个转变:①重新构筑经济地理学的理论框架,从“地域构造论”向“经济空间系统论”的转换;②扩大经济地理学的研究对象——经济现象,将社会、政治、制度、文化等纳入研究视野,从狭义的经济地理学向广义的经济地理学——社会经济地理学转换;③从地方尺度向全球尺度研究的转换;④从物质的生产和流动的空间过程及空间结构向非物质方面的转换;⑤从致力于发展独自的理论向注重和欧美经济地理学前沿研究领域相接轨的转变。日本经济地理学发展变化与最新研究动态对于同样处于转换期的中国经济地理学具有较大的借鉴意义。     

Incorporating Geography,Contingently: Geographic Pedagogies in a University Without a Geography Department

This article investigates efforts by a small regional university without a geography department to incorporate geography into its general education curriculum as part of a “quality enhancement” process mandated by its accreditor. Drawing on interviews and surveys of students and faculty, we highlight lessons learned that may be useful for institutions considering similar changes—including the importance of valuing disciplinary expertise, addressing faculty contingency, and engaging with existing research on geographic education and pedagogy. The initiative, while limited in significant ways, also suggests opportunities for advocates of geography to engage with agendas around general education reform and accreditation.     

科学地理学的理论基础及其研究内容与学科性质

在科学与技术是不同的知识形态,科学史研究的地理思潮转向,地理学向“软”的一面转向并关注社会,科学史研究的地理思潮倾向于关注“社会→地理→科学”关系的历史解释,地理学家在科学史的地理解释思想上的贡献等理论基础上,拙文主要阐述科学地理学这一新学科在建构“科学—地理—社会”关系体系上的独特性:①建构关注过去的、现在的及未来的“社会→地理→科学”关系;②践行“以任务带动学科”和“任务学科并重”的地理学发展方略,主要建构“科学→地理→社会”关系;③聚焦于科学活动因素的区域性,注重区域相关性分析方法论。基于这种独特性和地理学方法论精髓,科学地理学研究的内容体系包括:①科学研究及其组织与传播的时空结构;②科学研究及其组织与传播的时空结构与地理环境、经济、技术、社会、文化等结构要素的时空结构及其相互关系;③科学研究及其组织与传播对自然景观、社会景观、文化景观等的影响;④科学研究及其组织与传播对“人地关系地域系统”演进的影响。科学地理学的理论基础、建构“科学—地理—社会”关系的独特性和研究内容决定了科学地理学的交叉性、综合性和区域性,这与地理学特征是一致的,促进着现代地理学微观上的“深”化发展和宏观上的“综合”发展。