Challenges and opportunities
in post 16 geography
Rita Gardner
The Royal Geographical Society
(with IBG)
A personal view
• What is geography?
• Why does geography matter?
• The challenges of teaching relevant geography
• Joining up geography
• Challenges & opportunities in the new criteria?
• Opportunities for your students?
• Why grasp the challenges and opportunities?
What is geography?
• The understanding of the worlds peoples, places and environments,
locally and globally: their characteristics and distributions, their
interconnections, how they are changing and the processes by
which these changes are taking place.
• We live in a constantly changing and interacting world – geography
is the study of how political, economic, social and environmental
processes shape, differentiate and change places and regions
A world in which >50% people live in cities
Mumbai:
a global economy worth $65 trillion dollars
about 1 billion people live on c. $1 a day
Why does geography matter?
• To society, which needs:
• To me, as an individual
Why does geography matter?
• To society, which needs:
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Environmentally responsible young people
Socially aware and culturally tolerant citizens
People to understand inequality and to care about it
People to be English, European and world citizens simultaneously
People who can see interconnections, integrate ideas, appreciate
complexity, ask questions, do research, and be adaptable to change
• To me, as an individual
Why does geography matter?
• To society, which needs:
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Environmentally responsible young people
Socially aware and culturally tolerant citizens
People to understand inequality and to care about it
People to be English, European and world citizens simultaneously
People who can see interconnections, integrate ideas, appreciate
complexity, ask questions, do research, and be adaptable to change
• To me, as an individual
– Engages me in understanding what I see around me
– Helps me understand my place in the world
– Provides me with a world context into which to put my understanding of
our rapidly changing society and environment
– Helps me to form my views on some big issues facing my generation
– I learn a wide set of functional skills through real applications
– Encourages me to see others’ perspectives
Real issues in the real world
The territory size is proportional to the number of international immigrants that live there
The challenges of teaching relevant
geography
• thinking context
– temporal; spatial; economic; social; political; environmental; policy
– studying issues needs understanding of processes & concepts
• keeping up to date
– from news to new developments
– freely available statistics
– Subject associations – GA and RGS-IBG
• relevance starts at home
– your environment / your neighbourhood / your communities
– meaningful fieldwork
– engaging students’ experiences & different perspectives
• making the most of technology
– GIS; Google Earth; GPS
Joining up geography
How to move from modules as disconnected bits of learning …….
to a coherent whole with a clear rationale and intellectual framework for
both students and teachers
Organising approaches include:
1.
Process
2.
Landscape or place
3.
Concepts
4.
Thematic
5.
Issues
One of several possible conceptual models
Enterprise/Employment
Dimensions
Economy
Economic Processes
Temporal
Spatial –
local to
global
Pollution
Climate
change
Energy
Polarisation
Regeneration
Migration
Globalisation
Travel &
tourism
Geographical
information
science
Economics
Devt Studies
Business
Studies
Sustainable
development
Equity
Social process
Tolerance
Sociology/
Politics
Planning
Local
government
Hazards
Flooding
values
Environment
Environmental process
Responsibility
Earth/Environmental
Science; Chemistry
Conservation
Environment &
land management
Challenges and opportunities in the new
criteria?
• Fieldwork mandatory but no
coursework
• Focus on concepts, processes
and skills
• 4 modules instead of 6 with
fewer, longer exams
• Introduces diversity as a key
concept
• Far less prescriptive of content
• More flexibility for ABs (and
teachers) to be innovative
• Replacing repetition based on
content with that on concept?
• Specific reference to
understanding relevance of
studies
Opportunities for your students?
• Onwards and upwards
– Geography attainment at A level is above average
– 4000 enter HE to study geography each year
– Geography ranked high in National Student Survey
• Career stakes
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Bridging arts & sciences: geography as a third A level
Wide range of subject-related and ‘generic’ careers
80% graduate jobs require no specific degree
Geographers have good functional skills
Employers seek environmental and social awareness
Why grasp the challenges and
opportunities?
• Be part of revitalising the discipline at school
– Bring coherence and purpose
– Engage more young people through links to their lives
• Demonstrate its relevance to wider educational agendas
– citizenship; sustainable futures; climate change; social cohesion;
learning outside the classroom
• Ensure the future of your subject
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Demographics
New subjects
Vocational strands
Alternative qualifications
Because we need to !
www.rgs.org
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