Professional Standards and Values for University Teachers of Geography

This paper introduces the theme of 'teaching geography to non-geographers'. It is set against the context of learning and teaching with the 'Other' in geography. At the outset a working definition of a 'non-geographer' is provided. The resource and pedagogical implications arising from teaching geography to non-geographers are then outlined. Finally, the contributions to this broader debate from the five case studies that comprise this JGHE symposium are summarised.     

Gowin's Knowledge Vee and the Integration of Philosophy and Methodology: A Case Study

This paper reflects upon the five case studies that comprise the collection on the theme of 'teaching geography to non-geographers'. Key themes are discussed and an agenda for pedagogic research is outlined.     

地理哲学研究若干问题刍议

本文论述地理哲学研究的重要性,介绍西方地理哲学的发展概况和研究动态,分析我国地理哲学研究落后的主要原因,对如何开展我国地理哲学研究提出一些建议。     

Virtual Geographies and the Use of the Internet for Learning and Teaching Geography in Higher Education

Despite the plethora of teaching materials that are available on the Internet to enhance geography higher education, few assessments of the effectiveness of these materials exist. This symposium collects papers that provide guidelines for using the Internet effectively for teaching geography. Students must learn how to use the Internet effectively to promote learning; instructors need to learn how to use the Internet effectively to promote good practice in higher education; instructors need to learn how to use the Internet effectively to enhance learning; and higher educators need to learn how to use the Internet effectively not only in traditional classroom settings, but in new, non-traditional settings such as those used for distance learning. These papers provide some assessment of these various aspects of using the Internet for teaching geography in higher education.     

Environmental Research and Education in US Geography

This article evaluates geography as an appropriate home for environmental education. First, it argues that many geographers have defined geography as a discipline with a major, if not primary, interest in human–environment interactions. Next, it reviews the recent statements by non-geographer, environmental scholars that, directly or indirectly, argue for strong participation by geographers in environmental science and sustainability studies. After a brief review of the status and the nature of environmental research programs and environmental curricula, the article offers reasons why more environmental education does not take place in geography. The lack of environmental education in the discipline and the conservative nature of the courses taught are attributed to geography's small size and low status and to the controversial nature of environmental issues in the United States. A broad definition of environmental education is used when searching for evidence of its existence or importance, but special attention is focused on courses or programs that incorporate sustainability or other topics that include a human dimension, in contrast with those that are confined to a narrow, natural-science or management conception.     

Re-framing the Geography Dissertation: A Consideration of Alternative,Innovative and Creative Approaches

This paper reviews the opportunities and challenges for re-framing the purpose, process, product and assessment of final-year geography dissertations. It argues that the academic centralities of critical thinking, analysis, evaluation, effective communication and independence must be retained, but that the traditional format limits creativity and innovation. Re-imagining capstone projects has implications for students, faculty, departments and institutions, but greater diversity could enhance its relevance to students and employers, better aligning the student experience with the academic interests and future career demands of the 21st century graduate.     

Multidisciplinary field training in undergraduate Physical Geography: Russian experience

Field training is seen as a central component of the discipline of Physical Geography and an essential part of the undergraduate curriculum. This paper explores the structure and relationships between fieldwork and theoretical courses and the abundant experiences of field training in the undergraduate curriculum of 37 Russian universities. It details a case study of the Faculty of Geography, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia's largest center of geographical scholarship and training with 860 employees, which admits about 1000 undergraduates and 180 PhD students annually. Here, the total duration of field training extends up to 18 weeks annually and involves 14 (11 Physical Geography) specialist departments.     

Student experiences of multidisciplinarity in the undergraduate geography curriculum

This paper explores the student experience of multidisciplinarity within the undergraduate Geography curriculum. It considers the drivers that have underpinned this development before considering the findings of research into student experiences in two universities in the south of England. The results suggest that most students view this development positively and recognize a number of advantages that it brings, citing expanded opportunities for learning, working with people from other disciplines, expansion of perspectives and perceived benefits to employability. However, for a minority this development is more problematic. The research points here to issues with specialist knowledge and disciplinary pedagogies, social issues within the classroom and class organization and some reservations regarding groupwork. The paper concludes with a series of recommendations.     

Exploring the Transition: Coursework to Research‐Based Study in the Geography Honours Year

The transition from coursework study to independent research is a component of many geography Honours programs in Australian tertiary institutions. Despite being canvassed at the 2003 annual meeting of the Australian Heads of Geography Units, it is a topic that has, to date, received relatively little academic attention. This paper developed from a review of the Geography Honours program at the University of Sydney, conducted by the authors in early 2004. The paper aims to help address the perceived deficiency of research into Honours study. Three topics, related to the Honours year transition, are discussed. These are: the rationale for the Honours year transition from undergraduate coursework to research‐focussed study; the composition and rationale behind coursework programs for geography Honours students, and student‐supervisor relations and their impact on independent Honours research. In the process of examining these issues this paper offers suggestions as to how tertiary geography schools can look to develop their Honours year programs. These recommendations are made with the understanding that all tertiary Honours programs are unique and that issues such as staffing levels and departmental structure will influence what suggestions are appropriate for individual institutions. It is hoped that this paper will encourage more discussion about the nature of the Honours year. It is through such communication that the value of the Honours year in student development can be enhanced     

Internationalising Geography in Higher Education: Towards a conceptual framework

Key issues relating to the internationalisation of geography in higher education are explored. Drawing on past experience, critical questions are posed regarding the goals, ownership, management and operation of a proposed international network for teaching and learning in geography in higher education. It is argued that those developing the network must learn from the lessons of the past, both to avoid repeating avoidable mistakes and to ensure that the network successfully achieves its intended aims.     

An Inter national Perspective on Developing Skills through Geography Programmes for Employability and Life: Narratives from New Zealand and the United States

If there is a universal question that most academic geographers have been asked by students, it is “What can I do with geography?”. We argue in this paper that an important dimension of quality improvement in geography education is closing the gap between the perceived social usefulness of the subject (suggested by evidence to be relatively low) and the realities of what a subject offers as preparation for workplace roles (rated on evidence as relatively high). A potentially central part of the International Network in Learning and Teaching (INLT) Geography in Higher Education, therefore, is communicating information about skills for employment and life that are obtainable from geography-inspired instructional programmes. But behind the seemingly straightforward task of communicating a message is in fact a much more fundamental issue-getting to grips with socio-economic changes that are rewriting the nature and place of geographic learning and teaching. We suggest that positive outcomes from efforts to improve the quality of learning and teaching of geography will depend in part on strengthening and stabilising geography's image, particularly in the eyes of school and university students. We conclude that initiatives, already underway in several countries to popularise the 'skills profile' of a geography education, offer a framework for reimaging the subject.     

Assessing the Use of Real-time DataStreme Weather Data in an Introductory Physical Geography Course

The online data from the American Meteorological Society's DataStreme course have been used successfully in a traditional undergraduate college weather and climate class. DataStreme was designed to train K-12 teachers to transform weather data into exciting learning experiences. Adaptation of these materials so that some of this excitement could be infused in a traditional college setting was the goal of this pedagogical experiment. These data and associated learning materials have been adapted specifically for use in undergraduate weather and climate courses and are now being made available by AMS as Online Weather Studies. This paper describes and assesses the use of online data. The assessment involved a comparison of student self-reports of factual knowledge mastery, skills acquisition and satisfaction with the methods used in two sections of the same course, one offered with the real-time weather data and one without.     

Evaluation of the Work-Place Cooperative Project in Geography Degrees at the University of Leeds

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the context and objective of a Work-Place Cooperative Project (WPCP) established in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds in 1995. The project, in part a response to the changing graduate and employment market in the early 1990s, presents students with issues with a geographical dimension from business, commerce, industry and environmental research. A number of examples from the WPCP are presented.     

Preparing Geography,Earth and Environmental Science (GEES) Students for Employment in the Enterprise Culture

Maps and related graphics are important means of representing key issues in development education and related themes. This paper examines the use of world maps in materials used in teaching development in higher education and concludes that many are not 'fit for purpose'. Many of these maps create false connotations, which can lead to misleading understandings of key issues.     

(Education for) Sustainable Development in Geography Education: review and outlook from a perspective of Germany

Nearly 15 years after the Rio Conference and 10 years after the Lucerne Declaration on Geographical Education for Sustainable Development we are interested to what extent the goals of this declaration have been implemented? What role does Geography play in Education for Sustainable Development in higher education? We analyzed the modules of 107 degree programs with Geography as a degree major or as a teacher training subject at 55 German universities, technical colleges and universities of education. We conducted a quantitative text analysis in which we searched the key words “Sustainability”, “Sustainable Development”, “Education for Sustainable Development” and “Nature-Society Studies” in the Module Regulations. Our data indicate great heterogeneity between the degree programs. The key words were predominantly found in majors in “Human Geography”, “Geography” and teacher training programs for “academic high schools”. Aspects of the results considered in the paper include: (a) differences in the orientation of degree programs, (b) varying degree of implementation in the modules, (c) different conceptual understanding of the principles of sustainability, (d) the extent to which concepts of Environmental Education and Education for Sustainable Development are mixed, (e) heterogeneity between mandatory courses and electives.     

意大利纸质文物保护工作与文保教育概述——兼论中华古籍保护人才培养

中国的古籍保护事业正极速发展中,却也面临了许多全新的问题与挑战。而意大利在文物保护工作与文物保护教育上的成熟做法,虽然不能完全符合中国国情,却有许多值得国内参考的经验;例如:文物保护各领域间的分工与合作,修复课程设计上的文、理、实践并重,文物保护社会教育的普及,合理的学时,循序渐进的课程安排,专业的师资以及人民对于文物保护工作的热情和对文物修复师的尊敬等。这些经验值得加以深入探讨与分析,以期从中汲取欧洲人的智慧,滋养中国的古籍保护大业与文物保护百年教育。     

Impure and Worldly Geography:1 The Africanist Discourse of the Royal Geographical Society, 1831–73

The written networks through which knowledge is produced and circulated offer a focus for a theoretically informed critique of the formation of modern geographical knowledge. Drawing on deconstruction and colonial discourse theory, this paper presents a reading of the Royal Geographical Society's (RGS) published record of nineteenth-century African exploration. This discourse posits a racially unmarked subject-position as the condition of scientific discussion. The Society's geographical knowledge is shown to have been formed through the effacement of alternative subject-positions and the appropriation of other ways of knowing. It is suggested that closer attention to the discursive structures of written networks of knowledge might inform a more nuanced understanding of the reproduction of disciplined knowledge.     

An approach to mapping buried prehistoric palaeosols of the Atlantic seaboard in Northwest Europe using GPR, geoarchaeology and GIS and the implications for heritage management

Widespread layers of well-preserved organically and archaeologically rich palaeosols dating to the Bronze Age and Iron Age are known from across the Atlantic seaboard of Scotland, including the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland. The survival of these soils has been facilitated by an overburden of Aeolian sand forming dunes above them. Whilst these soils display archaeological importance, they are constantly under threat from erosion through storm damage due to their exposed coastal position. This presents certain challenges with regard to heritage management, since their extents are largely unknown, normally only being identified when exposed by wind and storm erosion. Consequently, following such damage mitigation can only be reactionary in response to archaeological deposits being uncovered, and left open to threat, Without accurately mapping the extent of these important deposits, archaeological landscape management is compromised.This paper presents a case study aimed at enabling proactive management of these deposits through rapid three-dimensional mapping undertaken using a combination of borehole-calibrated GPR survey and GIS modelling. The results demonstrate how effective baseline data can be generated to highlight areas of greater or lesser risk thereby providing the potential for quantifying and predicting the effects of damage from future storm events.     

Bridging the Gulf between Secondary School and University-level Geography Teachers: Reflections on organising a UK teachers' conference

This study contributes to growing research on the links between school and university geography by reflecting on the value of a teachers' conference organised in 2000. Through analysis of feedback from the conference and reflection on how the event has influenced the author's teaching, the paper considers the potential for academic geographers to learn from colleagues in the school sector and vice versa. The paper also uses personal experience and the teachers' feedback to provide guidance for people considering holding similar events, particularly with regard to the likely expectations and priorities of secondary school teachers. The paper notes schoolteachers' desire for a closer relationship with university staff and argues that current pressures on all teachers limit possibilities for broader and more sustained dialogue.