1154 | | Geography Education and the challenge of the Anthropocene | Tine Béneker (1); Gabriel Bladh (2)
The Anthropocene is a concept and perspective that challenges many foundations in our thinking about the relationships between human society and the planet earth. Findings from Earth Systems Science as well as research by Quaternary Geology Stratigraphers designate the Anthropocene as an ecological and epochal threshold. Humans are profoundly changing the ecology of the planet earth, and have become a geological force. For geographers, the Anthropocene leads to a revisiting and re-evaluation of ideas on human-nature relationships, including those between human and physical geography.
This has major implications for the school subject Geography. On the one hand, geographical knowledge has profound educational potential to make sense of this day and age as well as to engage in scenario thinking and discuss alternative futures. Thinking geographically can provide the means to explore, interpret and clarify relations and interconnections in the context of a complex world and a dynamic earth system. New attention is being paid to the role of place in pedagogy, more-than-human elements and outdoor education (Lynch & Mannion, 2021). On the other hand, it poses great challenges because the current school curriculum (and practice) is often not (yet) equipped for it: the stability of natural systems is mostly taken for granted, geo-historical writing of the earth and of human mankind are not connected, let alone the implications for discussing sustainable development. A deeper engagement with the Anthropocene from a geographical point of view would include the study of many ’wicked problems’ with related ethical questions, putting the values dimension of geography education up front (Mitchell & Stones, 2022).
World-wide the concept of the Anthropocene is still absent in geography curricula (Bagoly-Simó, 2021). However the discussion about it, among researchers, teacher educators and geography education communities, becomes more prominent. Therefore, this session will raise questions about how the Anthropocene challenges curriculum thinking and didactical practices in geography education, as well as how teachers can handle these challenges.
Bagoly-Simó, P. (2021) What Does That Have to Do with Geology? The Anthropocene in School Geographies around the World, Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 111:3, 944-957
Lynch, J. & Mannion, G. (2021) Place-responsive Pedagogies in the Anthropocene: attuning with the more-than-human, Environmental Education Research, 27:6, 864-878
Mitchell, D. & Stones, A. (2022). Disciplinary knowledge for what ends? The values dimension of curriculum research in the Anthropocene. London Review of Education. Vol. 20(1). Type: presentations, discussionLanguage: English
Tine Béneker (1); Gabriel Bladh (2)
(1) Utrecht University, (2) Karlstad University
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