The paradox of the ‘sustainable fieldtrip’? Exploring the links between geography fieldtrips and environmental sustainability

ABSTRACT

The global climate emergency raises important questions for the future of fieldtrips in geographical education. Building on a longer history of these debates in the discipline, geography educators are paying increased attention to the environmental impacts of field-based education, as demonstrated by the Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers’ (RGS-IBG) recent Principles for Undergraduate Field Courses. However, as important as these steps are, there is relatively little study of student engagement with discussions on the environmental sustainability of geographical fieldtrips. Reporting on a research project involving a survey, learning intervention and semi-structured interviews with undergraduate geographers based at an East Midlands university in the UK, specifically exploring these students’ perspectives on geography fieldtrips and environmental sustainability, we argue that participatory and collaborative dialogue between teachers, students and other geographical stakeholders is crucial as geographers continue to grapple with the ethical, political, and environmental implications of these debates.

KEYWORDS:

• Fieldtrips
• sustainability
• geography
• participation
• climate emergency

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments in the completion of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.