ABSTRACT This curriculum-focused paper details the Critical Arts-Science-Advocacy Framework (CASAF), a three-part, multidisciplinary learning sequence for K-12 teacher education and geography education in the Anthropocene. Rooted in the author’s professional praxis from the 2023–2025 school years at a public university, CASAF emphasizes the need to move beyond the “green status quo” and “green business as usual” to take meaningful action for environmental teaching and learning. As environmental issues are not just a single-subject “science issue,” taking meaningful action for Earth justice requires a multidisciplinary approach that cultivates environmental science agency and uses arts-based educational research methods and pedagogy. In CASAF, students are guided through the following phases of the learning sequence: 1) Experiential learning and mapping emotional geographies; 2) Engaging in community science to explore campus biodiversity; 3) Zines for environmental storytelling and public pedagogy. This actionable framework will help prepare future environmental change agents and Earth justice practitioners.

ABSTRACT With geography teacher educators (GTE) research still scarce, we introduce the Fibonacci sequence and the golden ratio as analytical tools for examining the balance of initial teacher education (ITE) for future geography teachers. Drawing on 46 in-depth interviews with GTE from nine university departments in Czechia, we investigate how they perceive ITE’s current curriculum structure and its ideal form. A novel research instrument, based on Fibonacci proportions, is used to compare the perceived weight of disciplinary knowledge, subject-specific pedagogy, and teaching practice. The findings reveal a persistent gap between the real and the ideal. Current programs are dominated by theoretical geography knowledge, while the ideal model shifts toward geography-to-teaching skills and classroom practice. This contrast highlights educators’ professional agency and the structural constraints imposed by accreditation, institutional traditions, and entrenched paradigms. The Fibonacci framework reveals hidden hierarchies in ITE curricula and guides their coherent redesign. More than a metaphor, it provides a diagnostic lens and roadmap for aligning disciplinary expertise with pedagogical application and practice. By exposing the knowledge – skills – practice imbalance, the study contributes to debates on teacher education (TE) reform and calls for a more practice-oriented geography TE model.

ABSTRACT This study examines how geography teacher‑education programmes in normal universities in the Sichuan–Chongqing region prepare future middle‑school geography teachers in the context of China’s New Liberal Arts Construction reform. In this article, Geography Normal University students refer to undergraduates enrolled in geography education programmes at normal universities, whose primary purpose is to train subject‑specialist teachers for the school system. New Liberal Arts Construction denotes the national initiative to reorganise liberal‑arts education by integrating traditional humanities with information technology, interdisciplinary learning and a stronger emphasis on practice‑oriented competence. The study adopts a mixed-method research design that combines both quantitative and qualitative methods. A questionnaire survey and in-depth interview are used to collect data from Geography Normal University students and middle school geography teachers. The research results reveal misalignments between the expectations of the New Liberal Arts reform and existing training provision: students report gaps in theoretical geography knowledge, weak basic teaching skills, limited and often superficial opportunities for micro‑teaching and school‑based practice, and insufficient support for developing teaching‑research capacity. Overall, the paper argues that the reorganisation of the school curriculum under New Liberal Arts Construction requires corresponding adjustments in the design of geography teacher‑education programmes.

ABSTRACT This paper presents a seminar-based teaching activity in geography higher education with two aims: first, to explore the use of generative AI (GenAI) as a pedagogic tool to support the design of teaching activities, and second, to examine the pedagogic value of role-play as an active learning strategy. The activity was implemented in the Big Questions for People and Planet module, where Year 1 students acted as “peace consultants” addressing fictional conflict scenarios in the imaginary country of North Terbonnew and other invented regions. GenAI tools were employed to co-create case studies, introducing evolving political, environmental, and socio-cultural drivers of conflict and enabling the iterative development of crises to which students had to respond. Drawing on Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory, the role-play seminar design foregrounded emphasised collaborative learning, peer-to-peer dialogue, and the co-construction of knowledge through scaffolded interaction. Feedback from participants highlighted the session’s high engagement, collaborative nature, and its ability to develop critical thinking, empathy, and real-world problem-solving skills. This paper situates the activity within geography education research on active learning, and by critically reflecting on the opportunities and limitations of GenAI in this context, the paper contributes to ongoing debates about innovative pedagogic practices in geography higher education.

This study explores the effect of place-based socio-scientific issues (PBSSI) on scientific argumentation competence (SAC) among pre-service geography teachers (PSGT). Adopting a quasi-experimental design with 160 participants, the experimental group received PBSSI instruction, while the control group received traditional SSI instruction. After a 5-week-long intervention, the findings showed that the PBSSI group performed better in both scientific argumentation disposition and scientific argumentation skills. These findings establish PBSSI as an effective approach for enhancing SAC in geography education, providing empirical evidence for its integration into teacher training programs and curriculum design to foster professional competence.

The aim of this article is to assess the potential of painting as a didactic tool in environmental education, with particular emphasis on its influence on students’ understanding of spatial processes and the development of ecological awareness. The article takes the form of a critical review and is based on an analysis of empirical studies examining the use of paintings in environmental and geography education published between 2010 and 2025. A systematic literature review was conducted, encompassing both quantitative and qualitative research in which painting constituted a central element of the instructional intervention or students’ cognitive processes. The findings indicate that painting effectively supports the visualization of complex environmental processes, fosters cause-and-effect reasoning, and facilitates the integration of scientific knowledge with aesthetic and emotional experience. The reviewed studies confirm a positive impact of image-based learning on students’ understanding of human–environment relationships, learning motivation, and cognitive engagement. At the same time, the results highlight that the educational effectiveness of painting strongly depends on the selection of artworks, the manner of their interpretation, and the teacher’s pedagogical competence. The conclusions suggest that painting can serve as a valuable complement to traditional approaches in environmental education, supporting the development of critical thinking, ecological reflection, and a deeper understanding of spatial processes.

Behavioral change toward low-carbon lifestyles is a key strategy for addressing climate change. Individuals encounter numerous barriers to such change, however, one of which is the psychological distance of climate change—where it is perceived as abstract, distant, and irrelevant. As attempts to reduce psychological distance have produced mixed results, bridging this distance—enabling individuals to perceive and relate to climate change as a concrete and connected issue—could offer a more effective approach. This study examines the role of geography education in addressing these challenges. Using survey data from the Taiwanese public (N = 579), the study investigates whether a positive experience of learning geography promotes climate change mitigation directly, and whether it does so indirectly through cultivating the sense of global connectedness, which helps bridge the psychological distance of climate change. The results indicate that the experience of learning geography is positively associated with the sense of global connectedness. Moreover, global connectedness partially mediates the relationship between the experience of learning geography and behavioral motivation. These findings suggest that providing quality geography education can be an effective pathway to addressing complex climate change challenges, including behavioral change and psychological distance.

ABSTRACT Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is transforming higher education pedagogy, through increased use, curriculum design and engagement. While it can enhance geographical thinking and spatial analysis, concerns exist about superficial learning and effectiveness. This paper examines the pedagogical value of GenAI-generated audio resources, presenting a case study from a second-year undergraduate geography module in a UK university, “Climate Change: Challenges for the 21st Century,” where JellyPod was used to turn lecture slides into short podcasts. A survey with 45 students found that 90% believed the podcasts improved learning, citing clarity, brevity, and the ability to distil complex topics. The podcasts accessibility and flexibility were praised, with 92% integrating them into routines for independent learning. However, 47% noted the AI voice was “robotic” or “monotone,” and that some content was superficial and lacked interactivity. Overall, GenAI podcasts are effective, scalable tools for reinforcing content, but future improvements should focus on voice realism, interactivity, and personalisation to promote inclusive, student-centred geography education.

The goal of this study was to identify the factors that affect geography students' abilities to use digital tsunami-based maps for disaster mitigation. Multiple linear regression analysis is used in this work. The findings demonstrated that students' learning outcomes in the disaster mitigation sub-materials were significantly impacted by the usage of digital maps in geography instruction. The skills of lecturers, student responses to utilizing tsunami-based digital maps as learning resources, and classroom learning activities between lecturers and students all have an impact on how well students can utilize tsunami-based digital maps. Thus, it can be said that digital maps based on tsunamis are helpful in teaching pupils about disaster preparedness.

On Spatial Thinking and Spatial Citizenship in Geography Education: Lessons from Editing a State Atlas

ABSTRACT Higher education in geography has been emphasizing active learning approaches that connect academic knowledge with professional practice. This paper presents a case study of an attempt to integrate Problem-Based Learning and Project-Based Learning within a master’s course in Human Geography focused on Healthy Urban Planning. The learning design, centred on urban green spaces as real-world planning challenges, engaged students in the analysis of environmental urban infrastructure with a focus on health promotion. The course involved graduate geography students working collaboratively through problem definition, data collection, analysis, and solution development, mirroring professional workflows. Students’ perceptions of the learning experience were explored through two anonymous open-ended surveys administered after course completion. Thematic analysis revealed high problem engagement, enhanced understanding through applied learning, and the development of autonomy, collaboration, and other transferable professional skills. Instructor guidance and peer interaction were identified as key supports, while challenges related to workload and uneven participation were also reported. The findings suggest that integrating Problem-Based and Project-Based Learning offers a valuable pedagogical framework for geography and planning education, particularly for place-based topics. The paper contributes to ongoing discussions on innovative teaching practices in higher education by illustrating how active learning supports disciplinary understanding and professional skill development.

ABSTRACT This short essay introduces the symposium “Teaching financial geography”. Despite financial geography gaining more prominence, particularly since the 2010s, there has been little collective reflection to date on how financial geography is taught and what role it plays in geographical education. This introduction here and the three papers that make up this symposium seek to bridge this pedagogical gap. We uncover some tactics to enrich this particular field, considering how best to overcome internal and wider constraints in teaching financial geography and capitalising on the growing demand for teaching and learning sustainable finance.

ABSTRACT Blended learning has reshaped geography education, yet how students experience blended Human Geography courses remains insufficiently understood. This study investigates how teaching resources, teaching methods, and instructional interaction shape students’ course experiences in a blended Human Geography class at a major Chinese university – part of one of the world’s largest geography education systems yet rarely examined in depth. Drawing on structural equation modeling and in-depth interviews, the study finds that instructional interaction is the strongest determinant of course experience, exerting both direct and indirect effects through engagement and perceived learning outcomes. Teaching resources and methods contribute primarily through mediated pathways, indicating that meaningful experiences emerge when online and offline components are coherently integrated. Qualitative findings further reveal that dialogic learning, feedback, and collaborative inquiry help students bridge abstract theory with applied spatial practice. Together, these results demonstrate that blended Human Geography teaching in China operates as a systemic and relational pedagogy. The discussion highlights interaction-centered design as key to transforming geography learning into a process of knowledge co-creation. The study offers a contextually grounded yet globally relevant framework for understanding blended geography education and highlights how interaction-driven design can bridge conceptual knowledge with spatial practice in the digital age.

In secondary geography education, developing students’ geographical thinking about World-Systems Theory remains challenging due to the abstract nature of core-periphery relations and unequal exchange. This action research examined how experiential role-play can scaffold students’ conceptual development from everyday commodity consumption toward systemic geographical thinking. Thirty-five tenth-grade students in Taiwan participated in a coffee commodity chain simulation involving differentiated roles across the Global South and the Global North. Data sources included student worksheets (n = 35), observer reports (n = 2), and classroom field notes, analysed using qualitative content analysis. The findings suggest that simulated wage polarization functioned as a form of cognitive scaffolding, supporting the concretization of abstract concepts. All students mapped the coffee production chain, while 91% correctly identified spatial divisions of labour and 91% articulated unequal exchange through comparative reasoning. Beyond role enactment, students demonstrated emerging systemic critique: 40% proposed structural reforms, 34% suggested industrial upgrading, and 26% emphasized human capital development. The differentiated “Observer Reporter” role supported metacognitive reflection and facilitated system-level analysis. Overall, the study suggests that theory-informed experiential simulations grounded in everyday geographical practices can support secondary students in visualizing and critically examining mechanisms of global economic inequality.

ABSTRACT The conservation of Indonesia’s endemic fauna, particularly the Javan Hawk-Eagle, a critically endangered and nationally significant species, presents a crucial yet underdeveloped theme within geography education. Despite its curricular inclusion, conservation topics are often delivered through predominantly theoretical and text-heavy methods, limiting student engagement and comprehension. This study addresses these pedagogical challenges by developing and evaluating an innovative educational comic designed for high school students, integrating Geo-Science frameworks with conservation content. The comic medium was selected for its capacity to simplify complex ecological and geographical concepts, rendering them accessible and engaging for learners. The integration of multidisciplinary Geo-Science perspectives within the comic facilitates a holistic understanding of conservation issues. Employing the UEQ to assess student responses, findings indicate predominantly positive perceptions of the comic as a learning tool. Notably, in a post-intervention open-ended survey, 53% of students (20 of 34) reported high motivation and explicitly committed to environmental protection. These results underscore the potential of comics as an effective pedagogical instrument to enhance both cognitive engagement and environmental stewardship in geography education. This study contributes to the advancement of innovative, interactive methodologies aimed at enriching conservation education and fostering spatial and ecological literacy among secondary education learners.

ABSTRACT This study examines the pedagogical value of paintings for developing upper-secondary students’ understanding of overtourism and its socio-environmental consequences. Thirty-one students (aged 16–18) analyzed five artworks representing urban, coastal and cultural landscapes. A mixed-methods design combined open-ended responses, Likert-scale ratings, and categorical identification of landscape changes. Findings show that paintings explicitly depicting overcrowding in squares and beaches were most effective for recognizing overtourism, while more ambiguous scenes were harder to interpret and rated as less useful. Radar plots, heatmaps, and aggregated scores highlighted selective perception: students associated overtourism primarily with crowding, infrastructural expansion, and environmental degradation, while social tensions were recognized mainly in urban contexts. The results demonstrate that visual art can function as a catalyst for critical reflection on the multifaceted impacts of tourism. Strategically integrating artworks into geography education supports spatial imagination, ecological sensitivity, and pro-environmental attitudes, offering a meaningful contribution to arts-based environmental education.

ABSTRACT This paper questions how competent physical and human geographers are at handling religion when they encounter it in passing. It specifically asks whether religious illiteracy is a problem in geographical education in the UK. It suggests that, despite significant advances in geographical scholarship on religion this century, this progress is yet to translate routinely into textbooks. These tend to repeat outdated claims about a supposed conflict between science and religion, and hinder the creation of inclusive and diverse classrooms by implying that students who belong to faith communities cannot be serious geographers. Using the example of water management in the Columbia River catchment/watershed and Indigenous communities and religious beliefs, the paper goes on to show why this matters in geographical education.

ABSTRACT The growing literature on methodology for qualitative geography research has tended to focus on research methods and techniques, with limited attention paid to the challenges inherent in the data collection process. Yet methodological reflections on the data collection process are crucial to understanding how qualitative geography research is conducted. This paper discusses the data collection process for a qualitative geography case study on the migration experiences of Nigerian Commonwealth Scholars (NCS), conducted in Nigeria in 2020. Focusing on a range of methodological approaches to participant recruitment, research interactions and interview method implementation, the analysis unpacks both the methodological challenges that impact the data collection process and the mitigations to address these challenges. Viewed within the wider context of methodological approaches, rather than techniques, the paper offers a broader analytical framework that reveals the interplay of flexibility and adaptability in dealing with the messiness and reality of conducting qualitative geography research. Crucially, this paper offers valuable insights that will help geography educators, researchers and students learning about qualitative geography research in action reflect on method implementation and adaptation and innovate new methodological approaches to data collection.

The educational rights of the Muslim minority of Thrace, the only officially recognised minority in Greece, are safeguarded by Article 41 of the Treaty of Lausanne (1923). Within this framework, minority education has developed into a distinct subsystem of the Greek educational landscape, historically shaped by the dynamics of Greek–Turkish relations. Since the late 1990s, state policy has prioritised the qualitative improvement of educational provision, leading to targeted initiatives, such as the creation of new textbooks for minority classrooms. The present study investigates, within the field of geography education, the extent to which these textbooks cultivate cartographic skills through the use of maps, comparing the specialised minority school textbooks with those employed in mainstream public education. Situated within the field of geography education and textbook research, the study applies content analysis to the full corpus of maps contained in both textbook categories, classifying them according to a tripartite typology and the type of learning task involved. The results of the analysis demonstrate that minority school text-books display notable deficiencies relative to their general education counterparts, particularly regarding the systematic integration of map-based learning activities. These findings suggest that the limited presence and pedagogical use of maps in minority school textbooks may contribute to the reproduction of educational inequalities, underscoring the need for policy measures to strengthen spatial and cartographic literacy in minority education.

There is a growing need to prepare students to address complex environmental challenges, particularly climate change and the expanding role of artificial intelligence (AI). This article examines the adaptation of the Artificial Intelligence for Social Good (AI4SG) Ideation module, a pitch- and project-based teaching framework designed to integrate AI literacy and sustainability education. Implemented in an upper division climate change course, the module combines project-based learning, culturally responsive pedagogy, and geographic thinking to guide students in developing community-oriented AI proposals aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Students were encouraged to approach their communities not through deficit lenses, but through additive lenses, and to frame sustainability challenges across campus, local, and metropolitan scales. To examine student engagement with the module, we analyzed lab reports, team proposals and pitches, and end-of-semester reflections. Findings indicate that teams articulated SDGs frameworks at local scales and conceptualized AI applications grounded in community context, such as consumption-related carbon emissions and climate-related disaster response. Student reflections further suggest developing critical AI literacy, including attention to ethical considerations and the limitations of technological solutions. By situating AI within applied geographic reasoning and pitch-based pedagogy, the AI4SG Ideation module provides an example of how environmental and technological literacy can be integrated within undergraduate geography education.