Learning to Think Geographically
Learning to Think Geographically
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This chapter explains how six concepts central to geographical thinking support the critical examination of geographic events and phenomena.
More specifically, it discusses:
How geographical thinking provides a powerful way for students to interrogate and deepen their understanding of everyday events.
The importance of supporting students in learning to think geographically as a way to move geography beyond the study of facts.
The nature and application of six concepts at the heart of geographical thinking.
Three core ingredients to successfully embedding thinking into geography classrooms.
Interrogating Everyday Events: The Churchill Port Example
Initial Event (CBC News, October ext{ }17, ext{ }2007): A ship loaded with fertilizer from northwestern Russia arrived in Churchill, Manitoba, marking the first time the northern port received goods from Russia.
News-worthiness Questions: This seemingly simple event raises a host of geographical questions:
What makes this event newsworthy, when other first-time ship arrivals in other ports likely occurred?
Why did the docking of a single Russian ship in a small northern port, accessible only 4 ext{ }months of the year, become a national news story and a "milestone"?
Would the story have been as newsworthy if the ship was from England or China rather than Russia?
Is its importance due to Churchill's location or the cargo (fertilizer)?
The Underlying Significance (as initially perceived):
It was the first time a trade ship navigated the Arctic Ocean from Russia to Canada.
The Arctic route was significantly shorter; typically, goods shipped via the Atlantic from Europe took 15 ext{ }days, almost twice the duration of the Arctic route.
Economic Importance: The group of prairie farmers involved claimed to have saved 400,000 in transportation costs compared to the usual route through Montreal and Thunder Bay.
Anticipation of the 'Arctic Bridge': The main excitement stemmed from the expectation of longer shipping seasons and expanded navigational routes as a result of global climate change.
Enthusiasts championed the Russian ship's arrival as the first stage in establishing lucrative shipping routes, year-round access to the Northwest Passage, new cruise ship destinations, and countless spin-off industries.
More fundamentally, it was seen as signalling a shift in the geopolitical significance of Canada's Arctic waters.
Later Developments and Lingering Questions (10 years later, 2018):
A professional transportation magazine published a cautionary article: "Churchill's future up in the air but remains perpetually promising" (Norbury, 2018).
Setbacks: The shallowness of the harbour, the shutdown of the only train access to the port due to flood damage, and other factors delayed, reduced, or perhaps extinguished the potential payoff.
Anticipated shipments of minerals, oil, and bitumen from Nunavut and neighbouring provinces did not materialize.
Grain shipments from the Prairies were stopped in 2016 when the port shut down.
Uncertainties and Scrutiny Required:
Was the reported significance well-founded?
Do we have reason to believe climate change will have the predicted near-term effects, or will it take ext{50 ext{ }years} for the navigational season to open significantly?
Even if the season is extended, will an economic bonanza result, given Churchill's decades-long attempts to expand business, suggesting other impeding factors not connected to navigational access?
Can the setbacks to the port's development be overcome?
Unintended Environmental and Social Consequences: Beyond economic benefits, myriad questions arise:
How will increased shipping traffic and development affect existing ecosystems?
To what extent will increased pollution lead to the destruction of wildlife habitats?
Will invasive species and bacteria significantly alter the region?
How extensively and in what ways will the lives and lifestyles of the people (e.g., Indigenous communities) who live there be affected? Will "opening up" the North alter the "sense of place" and the meaning of this unique region for its inhabitants?
Overarching Ethical Concern: On balance, is this a positive development to welcome or one to be feared and resisted?
It may be economically beneficial for some (Prairie farmers, those gaining from increased northern shipping) but detrimental for others (Inuit, those with a stake in southern shipping routes).
This necessitates deciding whose interests should take precedence and to what extent.
Conclusion: Helping students grapple with the range of issues raised by such news reports is central to teaching them to be intelligent consumers and users of geographic information, thereby teaching them to think geographically.
The Case for Geographic Thinking
Geography's Broad Scope: A wide-ranging subject addressing issues from natural physical processes to urbanization, environmental protection to economic disparities.
Offers insight into pressing issues: climate change, extreme weather, migration, settlement, environmental degradation, conservation, international assistance, and development.
Connects to diverse corners of an increasingly interdependent world, providing insights into global neighbours' lives and choices.
Current Challenges in Secondary Education:
Despite its strengths, geography struggles to find a prominent and engaging place in the secondary school curriculum.
Often folded into general social studies, with few teachers specifically trained in geography.
As a result, geography is often reduced to factual knowledge and basic skills:
Students memorize imports, exports, and capital cities.
Colour in maps.
Decipher contour lines.
Instruction often breaks down into discrete, disconnected lessons.
Consequences of Factual Coverage Approach:
Geography becomes largely a matter of learning factual information, with answers readily available in textbooks.
Students have few occasions to question or problematize the subject matter.
Does not encourage students to see geography as a body of conclusions to be constructed, interpreted, and assessed, or as an opportunity for problem-solving relevant to their lives and the world.
This approach often leads to student boredom despite geography being a stimulating subject.
The Challenge: Not simply to find ways to make geography relevant, but more importantly, to make its study intellectually active.
If students remain passive recipients of geographical facts rather than inquirers, they are less likely to be engaged.
Involving students in thinking geographically is more exciting, as drawing original conclusions about challenging situations is more appealing than simply finding answers others have produced.
Historical Frameworks for Geography Education:
"Five Themes" (1984): Developed by a joint committee of geography educators and geographers, it was a prominent early framework.
National Geography Standards (1994): Developed by the National Council for Geographic Education, largely superseded the five themes, with 18 sets of standards organized around six elements.
Canadian Geography Standards (Semple, 2001): A parallel framework developed for Canadian teachers.
Limitations of Standards and Themes:
While providing an organizing structure and benchmarks for course content, they do not provide much direction for supporting critical inquiries.
They do not consistently invite students to interrogate concepts, evaluate claims, assess different accounts, or extrapolate from information to critically consider implications in new situations.
Focus more on key knowledge outcomes than on knowledge building and geographical thinking.
Moving from Factual Coverage to Critical Inquiry (Table 7.1 illustrates the difference):
Students will see geography as a genuine inquiry when their task is to reach conclusions and solve problems using available information, making their own assessments, rather than just locating answers offered by others.
Examples of Factual Coverage vs. Critical Inquiry:
The world in spatial terms-location: Factual: Explain recent shift in retail shopping from CBDs to retail parks. Critical: Rank-order the three most significant changes brought on by retail suburbanization of the central business district.
Places and regions: Factual: Explain why places have specific physical and human characteristics. Critical: Which UNESCO heritage designation in Canada represents the most notable example of human-environment interaction?
Physical systems: Factual: Explain how extreme physical events affect human settlements. Critical: Develop an in-depth profile of several places based on data about the destructive effects of an extreme physical event.
Human systems: Factual: Compare Canada and an economically less-developed country using key demographic concepts. Critical: Identify the biggest differences for the provision of education, health care, housing, and water between the two countries based on demographic comparison.
Environment and society: Factual: Explain how humans prepare for natural hazards. Critical: What are the biggest differences between Canada's preparedness for common natural hazards with those of selected countries prone to similar hazards?
Uses of geography: Factual: Examine historical and geographical forces for the Industrial Revolution. Critical: Create an annotated pie chart rating the relative influence of geographical and historical forces on the advent of the Industrial Revolution in England.
Benefits of Critical Inquiry Approach: Heightened student engagement, deeper levels of understanding, increased ability to apply geographical ideas beyond the textbook, and turns students into geographers (or at least gets them thinking more like geographers).
Core Concepts in Geographical Thinking
These six concepts, formulated by The Critical Thinking Consortium (analogous to historical thinking concepts by Peter Seixas), serve as the basis for thinking geographically.
They are not "content" but sources of questions that invite and support critical thinking about geographical learning.
Four of these concepts are formally embedded in the Ontario geography curriculum and can frame geography-related outcomes in any social studies curriculum.
Dual Purpose:
Teachers can use these concepts to raise critical questions in geography.
Students can learn to use these concepts as tools to think in more sophisticated ways about their natural and human environments.
1. Spatial Significance
Central Question: How do we determine and assess the features that make particular geographic phenomena and locations worthy of attention or recognition?
Explanation:
Involves making judgments about the relative importance or value of a particular location or phenomenon.
Prioritizing or highlighting certain aspects is unavoidable in geography (e.g., identifying most important industries, notable tourist features, what to include/exclude on maps).
Conclusions about importance vary with perspective and purpose (e.g., an Australian vs. North American textbook's emphasis on Antarctica).
Assessments of significance may depend on the focus (political, cultural, environmental, or economic).
Students must learn to recognize and explore factors influencing what is represented and omitted to appreciate the selective nature of geographical information and understand why there can never be a single geography of a place or region.
Sample Critical Inquiries (Textbox 7.2):
For an assigned region, rank-order the three most significant industries in terms of their political, social, environmental, and economic importance.
As a commissioner for a local chamber of commerce, produce a map to entice senior citizens to move to your area, and justify the choice of the five most important types of features to include and the two least important types of features to omit.
Rank-order four towns or small cities in a region (or four prominent international cities) in terms of their economic and cultural significance.
On a scale from "major global importance" to "minor local interest," decide to what extent the arrival of the first Russian ship at Churchill, Manitoba, was a significant event.
Judging Importance from Maps (Activity 7.3): Comparing different "mystery" maps of the same place (e.g., Toronto) helps students infer mapmakers' decisions about spatial significance, intended audience, and purpose.
Key Attributes (from Table 7.13):
Determining geographical importance is unavoidable since geographers must prioritize what to focus on.
Assessments of significance are often implicit depending on what is included and excluded from the geographical account.
Spatial significance is more than personal preference but includes assessment of the scale and extent of influence on the region or population, and the extent of inherent and strategic value.
2. Patterns and Trends
Central Question: What can we conclude about the variation and distribution of geographic characteristics over time and space?
Explanation:
Geographers look for evidence of constancy and change in spatial arrangements over time and across regions.
They seek to understand the forces that maintain or shift patterns and predict future trends.
Efforts to develop models (e.g., central place theory, global climate models, GIS models) aim to explain and predict patterns.
Patterns and trends are seen in all natural and human phenomena (e.g., regional disparity, resource use, communication, ecosystems, demographics).
All phenomena experience periods of both constancy and change over a long view.
Many natural phenomena recur in periodic or cyclic fashion (e.g., seasonal cycles like monsoons, multi-year cycles like earthquakes, epoch cycles like ice ages), with periods of stability within these changes.
The purpose is not just to expect students to describe established predictive models but to invite them to develop their own theories or use existing models to draw new insights and fresh conclusions.
Models (digital, physical, or theoretical like distance decay theory) are assessed on their fit with data, predictive potential, and spatial breadth/temporal duration of their application.
Sample Critical Inquiries (Textbox 7.4):
What different patterns might you notice about changing climate if you used the following temporal scales: geologic time (10,000 ext{ }years), historic time (200 ext{ }years), recent history (last 10 ext{ }years), or current events (last month)?
Based on immigration trends, develop a population profile for Canada in 2050.
What are the five most notable similarities and differences between Canada and Brazil?
Compare and contrast climatic conditions in the Arctic and Antarctic polar regions and draw three generalizations about patterns you identify.
Key Attributes (from Table 7.13):
Consistency and variation are present over time (e.g., seasonal or long-term patterns) and across space (e.g., regional or global patterns).
Temporal and spatial variations are detected in terms of rate (e.g., gradually or quickly), distribution (e.g., uniform or uneven), and pattern (e.g., regular, periodic, or unpredictable).
Patterns and trends are measured in various units, including area, volume, distance, time, heat, pressure, and quantity.
3. Interrelationships
Central Question: How do human and natural factors and events connect with and influence each other?
Explanation:
Humans, the natural environment, and the built environment continuously interact across space and time in complex ways.
Underlying this concept is the dynamic of mutually reinforcing physical and human factors that shape the world and are, in turn, shaped by it.
Questions about interrelationships go beyond listing influences; they encourage students to identify and rate influences, and extrapolate to consider how the world might have been otherwise or what to expect in the future.
Climate change and globalization are widely discussed examples, highlighting the reciprocal nature of these interactions for understanding their complexities.
Geography becomes dynamic when viewed from a systems perspective, recognizing that particular locations flux, influenced by internal and external forces, changing or reinforcing identities.
Interactions also occur across locations through the movement or exchange of people, goods, services, ideas, and information.
Not all influences are interactions; others are associations that combine to produce a particular result.
Canada's Greatest Natural Disaster (Activity 7.5): Students imagine being editors for the new Canadian Guinness Book of World Records, tasked with determining which of several natural disasters in Canada had the greatest impact (e.g., Vancouver Island earthquake (1946), Red River flood (1979), Barrie, Ontario tornado (1985), Eastern Canada ice storm (1998)). They research and assess the breadth, depth, and duration of the impact using a rating sheet (covering natural environment, economic costs, human life and health, property, political/social systems), then defend their consensus conclusion within groups.
Sample Critical Inquiries (Textbox 7.6):
Rank-order the impact of the following on desertification in the southwestern United States: diversion of major rivers, an expanding population, industrial agriculture, climate change, fuel prices, and recreational and lifestyle patterns.
If Vancouver was an American city, how might its social and economic development have been different?
Using a web diagram, illustrate the interconnections of various factors on climate, including ocean currents, solar radiation, and wind.
Identify the range of human and natural factors that influence flooding. Assess the relative influence of each of these factors on recent flooding in two cities in Canada.
Key Attributes (from Table 7.13):
Contributing factors are not the same as determining factors.
Causal factors have varied sources and effects, including internal and external factors, contributing and counteracting factors, direct and indirect causes, and positive and negative impact.
Events have different degrees of influence depending on the breadth (e.g., isolated or widespread), depth (e.g., superficial or profound), and duration (e.g., short-lived or long-term).
4. Geographical Perspective
Central Question: What are the human and physical features and identities, as understood through various lenses, that characterize a place?
Explanation:
Requires understanding the human (economic, social, historical, cultural) and physical features (landforms, climate, soil, wildlife, vegetation) that characterize a place.
Without a sensitive understanding, students may unintentionally develop mistaken or "foreign" impressions.
Examples include the Romanization of parts of the world by explorers, or viewing the tundra as "barren" and "lifeless," which represent stereotypical or geocentric perspectives.
Acquiring perspective of place requires more than learning relevant geographic facts; it demands developing a tangible sense of what it means to "inhabit" the space as understood from various points of view.
This requires being open to unfamiliar features, suspending preconceptions and stereotypes, which allows understanding the nature of life and the reasons for people's decisions (e.g., assessing risks to the Canadian North requires understanding implications from diverse natural and human perspectives).
Adopting a Geographical Perspective (Activity 7.8 - Kerala Tea Plantation): Students describe the experience of living and working on a tea plantation in the Munnar district of Kerala, India, based on photographs, exploring the unique sense of place through prompts about quality of life, economy, climate, terrain, global connection, external forces, daily activities, and inhabitants' worldview.
Sample Critical Inquiries (Textbox 7.7):
What would be the three biggest differences in lifestyle for middle-class Chinese-speaking teenagers living in Kowloon (Hong Kong) and Richmond (British Columbia)?
From a collection of internet photographs of assigned regions, select the five most representative images and the five most atypical images. Explain choices and describe the difference in perceptions derived from the two sets of images.
After learning about a region, assess the adequacy of an account of the region in a National Geographic or Canadian Geographic article.
Develop geographic profiles of a particular city, from the perspectives of two groups: middle-class, long-term residents of the city, and recent immigrants who do not speak the language and are hoping to fit in.
Key Attributes (from Table 7.13):
Every place is both unique (has some features particular to the region) and connected (shares some features found in other regions).
A geographical perspective recognizes commonality (traits found throughout a region) and diversity (differences existing within a region).
Ethnocentrism (geocentricism) is the antithesis of taking on the perspective of a place because it employs a narrow or stereotypical lens when interpreting and understanding an area.
5. Evidence and Interpretation
Central Question: What information can be used as evidence to support ideas about geography, and how adequately does the geographic evidence justify the interpretations offered?
Explanation:
Distinguishes geographical evidence from information; information becomes evidence only when examined in the context of conclusions to be drawn or assessed.
Issues of evidence invite questions such as: How do we know what a place is really like? What can we legitimately conclude from the data? Are the conclusions plausible?
Counters a common naive assumption that data are accurate, relevant, and free of distortions.
Encourages critical analysis of data by examining its accuracy, precision, and reliability.
This includes analyzing three kinds of sources:
Primary sources: Provide raw data (e.g., surveys, maps, GIS, counts, aerial photos, geologic surveys, satellite images, architectural/city plans, interviews).
Secondary sources: Geographic reports, summaries, and representations not drawn directly from the object of study.
Tertiary sources: Provide overviews of information based largely on secondary sources.
Students must learn to scrutinize information and think carefully about interpretations made from available evidence (e.g., assessing claims about the Churchill sea route's future opening and economic benefits).
Sample Critical Inquiries (Textbox 7.9):
Determine what the maps of North America drawn by early European explorers reveal about their beliefs and worldview.
On a scale from highly speculative to completely convincing, assess the evidence for the projected environmental impact if the port of Churchill is open year-round.
Based on statistical data about occupations and consumption habits, draw several inferences about the wealth of a region.
Assess the credibility of the claim that the economic success of the Pacific Rim economies is a result of high skills and low wages.
Key Attributes (from Table 7.13):
Geographical information becomes evidence only when it is used to reach or support a conclusion.
Geographical evidence is drawn from primary sources, secondary sources, and tertiary sources.
Maps and other geographical representations are interpreted reports and not straightforward summaries of raw data.
6. Ethical Judgment
Central Question: How desirable and responsible are the practices and outcomes associated with particular geographic actions and events?
Explanation:
Engages students in considering what should happen, whether what has happened is desirable, and how a positive and responsible future might be achieved.
Encompasses various lenses (economic, environmental, cultural, political, historical) and various group and regional perspectives.
Example: The expansion of sea traffic in the Arctic may be economically desirable but environmentally undesirable; likewise, it may be good for Prairie farmers and Russian producers of fertilizer but damaging for Inuit residents and those involved with southern shipping routes.
The ethically responsible conclusion is the one that best serves the legitimate interests of the range of affected parties, taking all these factors into consideration.
Aims to help students develop careful, fair-minded judgments based on open-minded consideration of all evidence from varying perspectives, rather than uninformed or irrational reactions.
Responding to a Tsunami Disaster (Activity 7.11): Students examine four long-term responses to the 2004 Indonesian earthquake and tsunami (relying on aid, tsunami alert system, population relocation, new building codes/flood management). They use provided information to recommend the most economically, environmentally, and socially justifiable option for significantly reducing future damage.
Sample Critical Inquiries (Textbox 7.10):
What would be the most effective and responsible ways to combat rising sea levels in small Pacific island nations?
Negotiate a consensus proposal acceptable to key stakeholder groups (Indigenous communities, local citizens, companies, provincial government, federal government, environmental organizations) regarding the possible development of a local forested site.
Select an optimal location within a community to build a civic arena or a megastore.
Critique the recommendation to build a coastal liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in terms of environmental safety and sustainability.
Key Attributes (from Table 7.13):
Ethical judgments are assessments of what should or should not be.
Ethical judgments in geography can be made from economic, political, legal, environmental, and moral perspectives.
Ethical judgments can be assessed in light of accurate and adequate evidence, careful consideration of relevant factors and interests, and fair assessment of the pros and cons.
Embedding Geographical Thinking
The six concepts offer an approach to geographical thinking that emphasizes critical inquiry and problem-solving, with multiple entry points into the curriculum.
A seemingly simple event (like the Russian ship arriving at Churchill) can raise questions touching upon all concepts, depending on the purpose of the inquiry (e.g., reliability of climate change data $\rightarrow$ evidence and interpretation; nature of changes $\rightarrow$ patterns and trends; factors $\rightarrow$ interrelationships).
There is considerable overlap between these concepts.
Three factors are especially significant in adopting this approach:
1. Problematize the Topics and Resources
The goal is to shift from teaching geography as an informational subject to an inquiry-based one, exploring genuine inquiries where conclusions are open for critical debate.
This involves using the six concepts as entry points for inquiry into curriculum topics and the resources students consult.
Multiple Inquiries Involving a Map (Activity 7.12 - Nlaka'pamux Map): Students reflect on changes in the Nlaka'pamux worldview after initial European contact by studying a pre-contact map attributed to them. They then read about changes and imagine a map a Nlaka'pamux mapmaker might have drawn 70 ext{ }years after contact, applying:
Evidence and interpretation: What conclusions can be inferred about their worldview from the pre-contact map?
Patterns and trends: Based on the map and knowledge of colonialism, what would have changed and remained constant over 70 ext{ }years?
Other concepts can inquire into different aspects of Indigenous-European contact: Spatial significance (most important aspects on Nlaka'pamux vs. European maps), Interrelationships (which European influences most affected Nlaka'pamux life; what Nlaka'pamux features impacted Europeans?), Geographical perspective (main features depicted, what life was like), Ethical judgment (appropriate response to present-day Indigenous land claims).
2. Teach the Concepts
Students need to understand these concepts before they can use them to guide their critical geographical thinking.
Regular application to curricular materials and progressive refinement of their use are necessary.
Understanding requires more than definitions; students must grasp the key features or attributes that characterize each concept (as detailed in Table 7.13).
3. Draw on Multiple Resources
Teaching geographical thinking requires students to have access to a variety of primary, secondary, and tertiary sources reflecting a multiplicity of perspectives.
Students also need guidance in finding and assessing the abundance of resources available, especially online.
Concluding Thoughts
Geography has enormous potential to activate students intellectually and socially.
By focusing on humans' place in the world and current social and environmental issues, geography can create aware citizens with the knowledge and ability to take action for positive social change.
This capacity for change is dependent on geography's ability to arouse critical awareness in students.
The described concepts offer a vehicle for students to inquire critically into important societal issues, develop complex, contextualized, and grounded understandings, and see the many dimensions of problems (from understanding varied data sources to awareness of moral implications of knowledge and actions).
Learning to think geographically assists students in approaching the rich content of geography in ways that create meaningful and enjoyable classroom experiences and enhance their learning.