This paper presents a case study of one online professional development course for geography teachers called ‘Teaching Sustainable Futures’ (TSF) from UCL’s Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education (CCCSE). I will explain how the course was developed by asking: how can professional development help geography teachers contribute to young people’s capabilities to live and flourish in the Anthropocene? _x000D_
The research-informed course aims to help teachers to access the potential of Geography (the discipline) to help young people understand the Anthropocene and develop their agency to act toward sustainable futures. The Geographical Association’s curriculum framework (2023) combined with the GeoCapabilities project https://www.geocapabilities.org/ helps to guide the approach to using the disciplinary knowledge of geography. Critical geography education with a pedagogy of enquiry for action are important principles guiding how teachers can be equipped to explore more hopeful futures for young people, when teaching issues often represented as catastrophic and fearful, such as climate change. The challenges and dilemmas of developing the course are discussed, such as which geographies to include, and balancing truthfulness and honesty with hope and action. Powerful disciplinary knowledge (PDK) – the potential of geography to understand the Anthropocene – is a guiding principle in the course. The exploration of values is also important. This intersection of knowledge and values, and the interdisciplinarity which arises when Anthropocene issues are explored in geography, informed the course design (see Mitchell and Stones, 2022). A group of teachers contributed to developing and trialling parts of the course. Their feedback is used to offer tentative findings on its potential for geography teachers, teaching and young people. _x000D_

David Mitchell
University College London

 
ID Abstract: 380