How many times have we paused to consider what it is that goes on in the online worlds of young people? Should we just see their behaviour (and ours) as being that other world – be it Facebook, twitter, digital games or ‘research’ – or should we be aligning our teaching approaches with the realities of ever on networked spaces? If we take the latter approach and get networked in our teaching then what of the other world of real world spaces, real time and real people living their everyday lives. In truth geographers are in the ‘box seat’ to blend the new with the old. We can use the ever changing and expanding array of ‘apps’ and explore understandings of the world around us in ways that are dynamic and with opportunities to model alternative futures – all within the constructs of geography, its standards and its traditions. It’s the best time to be a geographer and we have a new curriculum that reflects the challenges of our times. Remember to look out the window!

1. Through the eyes of young observers – Geographers
imagine, image and create futures
Margaret Robertson
Professor of Education
La Trobe University, Melbourne
Annual conference, July 2012

2. The Olympic Magic
Tweets; Blogs; Facebook
Iphone; GIS??; Pics etc etc

3. The Formal Context – three aligned (?) mantras
• The Australian Curriculum – Geography. See
Australia n Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority
• Professional standards for accomplished school geography teaching See
http://www.geogstandards.edu.au/
This project was partly funded through an Australian Research Council Linkages grant. It is an
initiative of the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne;
Australian Geography Teachers' Association (AGTA) ; Geography Teachers’ Association of Victoria
(GTAV) ; Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT)
• Geographers’ capabilities (Bachelor’s degree). See
https://www.iag.org.au/about-geography/geographers-capabilities/ These Threshold
Learning Outcomes were endorsed in November 2010 by the: Australian Academy of Science’s
National Committee for Geography, Australian Geography Teachers’ Association,
Geographical Society of New South Wales, Institute of Australian Geographers, Royal
Geographical Society of Queensland, and Royal Geographical Society of South Australia.

4. The ‘real world’
Geography and the world of work
• For reference see the Report on the Spatial industry at
http://www.agta.asn.au/news/other/spatial_industry_report.pdf
• Consider the workforce tiers: -
industry, trades, professions, and….
• Highlights the commodification of GIS or photogrammetry
or geoinformatics in everyday life.
• Everybody ‘trades’ in geospatial data!!
Our challenge – joining the dots for students, policy makers
and schooling

5. The dilemma
What stays? What’s changed?
• All the old concepts of • The concepts are the
knowing, thinking, and same, but….
doing remain • Our tools have turned labours
of love and endless hours of
– Space and place hand drawing, recording and
– Distributions and patterns processing into instant sources
– Interconnectedness of ‘endpoints’; ‘products’;
– Mapping ‘outcomes’.
– Planning • AND, kids are our best trainers
to ‘get good’ with them – if we
– Fieldwork
let them!! However….history is
– Questioning and discovering important for pointing the way

6. 1675? The Orient
Nicola
Bailleul le Jeune,
1750
Geography ‘Matters’
Early charts
Hollandia Nova detecta 1644 ;
Terre Australe decouuerte l'an 1644

7. 7

8. 8

9. Colonial artist’s view of the indigenous landscape – painting
by John Glover of Tasmanian Aborigines - 1837
9

10. Olegas Truchanas – explorer, photographer inspirational
leader of the conservation literature and wilderness
ethic (1923-72). A passionate advocate for the
beauty, rarity and unique features of nature. A ‘new’
landscape aesthetic – the home of the ‘Greens’!
Lake Pedder, 1960s
10

11. 11

12. 1937
Tokyo earthquake, 1923
12

13. Recent past...predicting our times
..geography is seen as having moved from a
catalogue of facts about the earth’s surface
to a reasoned description of the influence of
physical factors on human activities and
more recently to a science of spatial
correlations, i.e. the study of relationships
between difference distributions on the
earth’s surface. (Graves, 1972, p.18)
13

14. East meets West in 2010
via satellite imagery
14

15. 15

16. From
This in 1996 – Land Use UK
project To this in 2009
16

17. So what are the ‘threats’?

20. Pandora/s …worlds.

21. Helmut’s world - Parkour

22. ‘Modern Geography’
• Borders – redefined: it’s personal, now and immediate
• Expeditions – RGS; risk taking
• Twitteratterie – short bites
• E-democracy – personalised learning – ‘counter geographies’
• Energy – personal zest for living, making things happen
• Bio-security; well-being and health
• Building optimism (anti-pessimism)
• Doing versus sitting
• Curiosity and wonder for all that’s happening
• Updating updating updating eg world bank figures
• Anti-stereotypes
• Valuing the past….???

23. The personal tools – ubiquitous!
Country 2001 2009 2010-11
World 15.6 69.0 78.2
Algeria 78.6 92.4
Argentina 18.1 128.8 141.8
Australia 110.7 100.9
Bangladesh 46.2
Chile 96.9 116.0
China 11.4 56.1 64.2
Egypt 87.1
Finland 80.5 144.2 144.2
Germany 128.9 127.9
Japan 58.8 90.1 94.7
Korea, Rep. 61.3 98.4 103.9
Papua NG 27.8
Saudi Arabia 12.0 176.7 187.9
Singapore 72.3 133.4 145.5
Thailand 103.6
UK 78.3 144.2 130.3
US 45.1 97.2 90.2
Vietnam 1.6 130.0 177.2
Yemen 0.8 46.1
The World Bank –
mobile phones per 100 people

25. And, our planet earth…hence the big issues that
need our guidance as teachers of geography are..
• Sustainability – what does it mean?
• Climate change
• Governance – Shifting East.
– The ‘west’ meets Feng Shui
• Bio-security
• Energy
• Mobilities – actual and virtual
– Employment (eg mining industry)
• New ‘imaginaries’ or landscape aesthetics for
living our lives. Revaluing nature!

26. Series editors: John Chi-Kin Lee; Michael Williams and Philip Stimpson
See also Robertson, M. & Lee, J. (2009) From School-based Curriculum to Whole-school
Approaches to School Development. In J.Lee & M.Williams (Eds) Schooling for Sustainable
Development In China: Experience With Younger Children. Dordrecht: Springer

27. Building confidence to meet these
major societal shifts requires..
• Clear vision of what counts
• Resilience to make change happen
• Good support networks
• Professional development – ongoing
• ‘Time out’ to reflect – often
• Working collaboratively with colleagues in all
disciplines and
• Negotiating pathways for learning – one size does
not fit all!
2 projects to illustrate..

30. A strong multi-discipline focus
• Bringing together physical/natural and social sciences
• Collaborative projects
• Building from local initiatives
• Creating opportunities
• Sharing resources
• Encouraging ‘understanding’…..

31. Case Study samples from Australia,
UK, The Netherlands, Kenya,
Finland, Singapore, Taiwan, US,
Colombia, Chile

32. Contributors
• Margaret Robertson (La Trobe Uni – Australia and UK)
• Sirpa Tani (University of Helsinki)
• Taina Kaivola and Hannele Rikkinen (Uni. of Helsinki)
• Tene Beneker (Uni. Of Utrecht, The Netherlands)
• Geok Chin Ivy TAN (NIE, Singapore)
• Rex Walford, Molly Warrington and Margaret Robertson (University of Cambridge)
• Sarah Shucksmith and Molly Warrington (Uni. of Cambridge)
• Jeremy Chan (NTNU Taiwan)
• Osvaldo Muniz-Solari and Carmen Brysch (Texas State University)
• Ximena Cortés-Quezada (Universidad de La Serena) and Osvaldo Muniz-Solari
• Ruth Quiroz-Posada (Universidad de Antioquia, Medellin) and Osvaldo Muñiz-Solari

33. Research Aims
To capture the views and visions that young people (ages 12
years and 15 years) have of the world . [Much of the
information gained relates to free-flowing conversations with
volunteer students.]
Gather cross cultural input for comparisons
Attempt to collate these views from diverse
cultures and backgrounds
Global themes grounded in situated realities of
local communities

34. Common methodology – modified Delphi technique
• Step 1: personal ‘brainstorm’
GOALS
OTHER - SELF LEISURE
NOMINATING ACTIVITIES
PUZZLES
ME FAMILY
DREAMS SCHOOL
FAVOURITE
PLACES

35. Background studies
• Robertson, M & Gerber, R (2001) Children's Ways of Knowing:
Learning Through Experience, Camberwell, Australia, ACER Press.
• Robertson, M & Williams, M (2004) Young People, Leisure and
Place: Cross-cultural Perspectives, Hauppauge, N.Y., Nova Science
Publishers.
• Robertson, M & Gerber, R (2007) Children's Lifeworlds: Locating
Indigenous Voices, New York, Nova Scientific.
• Abbott Chapman, J & Robertson, M (2009) Adolescents' favourite
places: redefining the boundaries between private and public
space, Space and Culture, Vol. 12, No. 4, pp.419-434.
• Robertson, M (2009) Young "netizens" creating public citizenship in
cyberspace, International Research in Geographical and
Environment Education, Vol. 18, No. 4, pp.287-293.

36. Small group studies – Rural Victoria (Australia)

37. Step 2: sharing and collating

38. Step 3: Collating the responses in focus groups

39. Laura : My first future concern is my job. I’ll be 24 in 2020 and I would like to have
made it as an author by then, or at least a reporter for some sort of newspaper or
magazine. My next concern diseases. I would want to have my health, friends and
families health good.
Claudia : One of my future concerns is probably finding a job that I can earn money from
and also one that I will enjoy doing.
Step 4: Presenting their ideas

40. Singapore

41. Kenya

42. Haarlem – The Netherlands

46. Peterborough - UK

47. US - Texas

48. Taiwan

49. Colombia

51. Chile

52. Summary themes – tentative
• Focus on personal ambitions – education, jobs,
money and success. At a ‘home’ level they appear
optimistic.
• Concerns repeated in all transcripts
– Climate change
– Global poverty
– Drought
– Pollution
– Health well being – drugs, obesity and violence issues
– Technology .......not so much. It IS!!!

53. Educational Outreach and Futures Thinking
• Relationships are fundamental to success
• Local and global must intersect
• The ‘everyday’ requires research, knowledge building and
respect
• Communities start from a place – fixed in real space and
time OR in virtual space and time
• Young people think and act differently – they have creative
ideas and practices that are fundamental to our futures

54. Our challenges conceptually are...
The role of The
the individual The concept relationship Can we
How we
and of the state; between imagine..... Can we lift Can we adapt
construct new
aesthetics in its curriculum absolute and other places ourselves to to change and
visions in
neo-liberal and relative and embrace promote
such
politics ‘flat’ mandated space. (eg space/time liberty? hope?
contexts?
world outcomes world city relationship
utopianism concept)
54

55. Towards a new curriculum, from..
The Four Traditions of Geography (Pattison, 1963)
• Spatial tradition
• An area studies tradition
• A man [sic]-land tradition, and
• An earth science tradition.
55

56. To..a new theoretical approach based on the old and…
Personalised enquiry based learning
Negotiated curriculum and knowledge content
Co-learning with peers and teachers
Fieldwork, discovery and learning by doing
GIS and applications of digital technologies to spatial data analysis
The imperative of tolerance, understanding and cooperation.
Assessment based on geographical reasoning and process
Regular student led reviews and feedback sessions
A focus on humanity and the soul of civilization
56

57. Perceptions of Environments as a complex
web of interactions
Refer: Zimmerman, 2010

58. Teaching challenge - helping
children to become global citizens. We need
‘smart’ classrooms, fresh thinking and courage.
58

59. Time to get on our bikes!

60. …and provide time for learning…perhaps
even invent new rules
60

61. 61