my students and i are very happy to share news of a contribution we have made in response to an invitation from Professor Michael Solem over at the Grosvenor Center for Geographic Education at Texas State. Professor Solem serves the American Association of Geographers as Senior Advisor for Geography Education and Co-Director of the National Center for Research in Geography Education.
we were thrilled when he invited us in June 2022 to contribute a chapter to Powerful Geography: International Perspectives and Applications which he has co-edited with Professor Richard Boehm and Dr Joann Zadrozny.
the book assembles case studies of Powerful Geography from Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Czechia, Japan, Switzerland, the UK and the US. Samuel, Estella and I contribute our work from Singapore.
the abstract of our chapter reads:
Powerful geography has established a renewed purpose in geography education, providing a broader and normative framework for school geography. This chapter extends the theoretical underpinnings of powerful geography beyond the geography discipline by applying its lens to examine a data science curriculum as enacted in a general elective hosted at an institute of higher learning (IHL) in Singapore. Students of the IHL module were interviewed about the efficacy of their learning after taking the module. The data analysis thoroughly reflects that powerful geography and knowledge are strong positive forces for student learning. The chapter concludes by making the case for powerful geography to be given more weight in curriculum design in disciplinary domains beyond geography, as understandings of the learning sciences continue to evolve.
