Teaching regionally focused introductory undergraduate courses can be challenging when students do not have similar levels of formal geography experience. One way to offset this problem is to introduce core geographical concepts as a framework to help refocus attention on the myriad spatial dynamics at work in a region. This article explores how…

GeoCamp was a place-based intensive short course in geographic inquiry and field methods for in-service teachers and education professionals held from July 18 to 27, 2022, in Iquitos, Peru, and the Loreto region of the Amazon. The course aimed to incorporate elements of geographic inquiry by exploring how plants, animals, and humans interact in…

Information design is the theory and practice of presenting information through the pairing of graphic and verbal content. It is important in the sciences because of the centrality of data visualization in research and teaching. This paper seeks to build the case for the inclusion of information design within both the Geography and university- or…

The focus in this article is on the usefulness of spatial sequencing as a tactic for interpreting a map and organizing our memory of it. This skill is useful whenever some condition varies in a systematic way with distance. When students are asked whether they see a pattern on a map of a topic like wildfires or terrorist activity, some students…

This paper reflects on the classroom use of the "Star Trek" American science fiction television franchise to teach critical and emotional geographies to undergraduates specializing in science, technology, education, and mathematics (STEM). Both science fiction and STEM education are ambivalent and contradictory scenes of social…

There is an increasing urgency, driven by global geopolitical, ecological and climate crises, for geography teachers to use their subject expertise as agents of change to empower children and young people with the knowledge and skills needed to think geographically and better understand our complex and rapidly changing world. This paper brings our…

The integrated status of Social Studies in the Norwegian "Curriculum for Knowledge Promotion in Primary and Secondary Education and Training 2020" reflects an international educational trend pertaining to a movement from knowledge and traditional disciplinary thinking to generic skills, competence and boundary crossing. This article…

To know a place, one must observe more than just the "conditions" there. It is also important to know about "connections" with other places, near and far. This article looks at research about geographic connections, with a specific focus on describing the area of influence (the aura) around a geographic feature like a lake,…

Geographical Olympiads are disciplinary competitions that can be a tool for assessing geographical knowledge and skills in different countries of the world. This article aims to analyse the results of the national and international geography Olympiads and to identify their conditionality and interrelationship. The secondary aim is to find out…

An "analogy" is a statement of relationship. A "spatial analogy" is an analogy based on a spatial relationship that is observed in a location. Spatial analogies can be based on any spatial relationship, including distance, direction, elevation, proximity, enclosure, or position in a pattern, region, or sequence - in short,…

Geospatial expertise draws on and recognizes a vast array of seemingly unrelated interconnections allowing the geographer to find solutions to otherwise incomprehensible problems. Geospatial thinking involves both time and space, acknowledges cause-and-effect relationships of geographic phenomena at multiple scales, and recognizes the impact of…

This is the fourth in a series of six articles about how research by psychologists, neuroscientists, robot engineers, and other scientists could help geography educators design better lessons. This article will focus on teaching about regions as narrowly defined: a region is a group of places that have something in common and are close to each…

Each location on earth has its own mix of climate, minerals, land cover, politics, religion, and other features. Geographic inquiry starts (but does not end) with careful observation of these conditions, because geographers assume that they can influence what happens in that place. Future articles in this series will look at different modes of…

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…

Scholars have become increasingly interested in identifying a more effective set of core teaching practices for developing teacher education and professional development programs. Although they have conducted many investigations within this realm over the past two decades, these efforts have focused mainly upon science, language arts, math, and…