GA Conference and Exhibition 2025

Learn how to: look for (and find) connectivity, representation, multiple dimensions and synoptic elements within changing places; and how to find clues about the interconnected past, present and future(s). Practice how these skills can be used for high-level responses within 'To what extent' exam questions, and be equipped with a ready-to-use case study (Kochi, India).

This paper reflects on a collaborative project to co-create decolonial pedagogical resources for teaching the climate crisis at Key Stage 3 in the UK. Drawing on a DEPA-funded project in Cameroon, the team encountered challenges that question the feasibility of genuinely decolonial educational materials, revealing the complex interplay between decolonial theory and practical realities in educational resource development.

The title is now updated to: How Can Textbooks Better Guide Students in Learning Geography?
Summary with AI support: This session explores how world-centred knowledge and question-led learning are embedded in China’s geography textbooks. Drawing on comparative studies and Shanghai’s latest curriculum, it highlights pathways from content to competencies. Through the Amazon Rainforest case study, it shows how textbooks can foster relational thinking, ethical awareness, and future-oriented geographers who learn not just facts, but ways of becoming.

As the education sector comes to grips with the surge of artificial intelligence programmes available, I'll reflect on how far we've come in geography with its use and demonstrate how it's become an integrated feature in my classroom. I'll also show how we've educated students to manage it ethically and practically.

In this workshop, we will share how we have structured assigned tasks for students across four years to deepen their understanding of key geographical concepts progressively. A primary focus is on sustainability, a core concept in the geography curriculum in Singapore.

The tasks are designed using scenario-based learning to immerse students in real-world geographical issues. This approach enables students to bridge classroom knowledge with practical applications, fostering meaningful learning experiences.

To ensure progression, we aligned our tasks with Revised Bloom's Taxonomy, guiding students’ cognitive development at different levels:
· Lower Secondary (Sec 1–2): Emphasis on application and analysis
· Upper Secondary (Sec 3–4): Advancement to evaluation and creation

Through this deliberate and scaffolded approach, students deepen their understanding of sustainability and other key geographical concepts as they progress through their secondary education journey.

This session presents the findings of my MA research paper which explores the role of Initial Teacher Education in supporting teachers to decolonise geography. The presentation provides a review of recent literature and decolonial efforts in geography, outlines a vision of a transformative decolonial geography for building global solidarity, and explores the role of Initial Teacher Education in supporting student teachers in engaging in this work. The theoretical framework for decolonising geography explores how teachers can foster solidarity between those in the classroom and the oppressed, supporting children to become more connected to the world around them.

This session is for those engaged in teacher education, and early career and more established geography teachers. It offers teachers insights into recent efforts to decolonise efforts, and an ambitious perspective for decolonising the subject in their lessons. It offers teacher educators insight into current efforts to support teachers with this work, and to consider the role they play in connecting with schools to decolonising geography.

This workshop will focus on highlighting key strategies geography teachers can deploy to support students, with the aim of reducing the educational disadvantage gap. It will share work from schools in Hampshire, exploring examples in supporting literacy and pupil engagement. Attendees will also have the opportunity to reflect on the impact of their own strategies.

In order to learn to think geographically, students need to be involved in making connections between: their personal geographies and new knowledge; claims made by disciplinary knowledge and supporting evidence; geographical concepts, processes and models and their application to new case-studies; and policies, practices and their social, economic, environmental and ethical implications.