Teaching the Environmentin School Geography: A viewfrom the United States
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2179-0892.geousp.2025.230715Keywords:
Environmental geography, Geography education, United statesAbstract
As a discussant at the 2024 ENPEG meeting in São Paulo, Brazil, I reviewed how to teach environmental impacts in geography education. My lecture focused on the organization of academic standards in the United States and their influence on environmental teaching. I highlighted the unique aspects of geography, emphasizing the relationship between people and the environment, as defined by scholars like Susan Hanson and Yi-Fu Tuan. While environmental content appears in schools in biology and environmental science, geography often gets sidelined in U.S. education, largely due to incomplete teacher training and the lack of dedicated geography standards across states. I proposed that effective environmental geography teaching must show the interconnectedness of human and physical systems. Two teaching strategies illustrated this approach, and I concluded that good environmental geography
education requires well-trained teachers and integrated curricula that reflect the complexity of environmental issues, moving beyond a fragmented approach to teaching.
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References
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