Human-Environment Thinking and K-12 Geography Education

Abstract

Pollution issues, anthropogenic climate change, and biodiversity declines, formerly local in scope, accumulate to threaten crossing planetary boundaries and tipping Earth’s system to an uninhabitable state. The human-environment identity is an unsung cornerstone of geography that can educate upcoming generations of citizens about trends over time, current conditions, and pathways to a more desirable future. The geography education community should develop and apply human-environment thinking through tools like timelines and big ideas. We hope the geographic thoughts presented herein will provide a scholarly rationale for K-12 educators to consider as they design curricula to share human-environment geography with students.

Keywords:

• Human-environment geography
• anthropocene
• new concepts and events
• framing
• big ideas

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thomas Larsen

Thomas Larsen is a human-environment geographer and instructor in the Department of Geography at the University of Northern Iowa. Dr. Larsen conducts research on the Anthropocene, human-environment thinking, theories of place, powerful geographic knowledge, and learning progressions.

Matthew Gerike

Matt Gerike is a professional geographer with experience managing projects, programs, people, and services; fulfilling geospatial technology roles in local and state government; and teaching in higher education. Dr. Gerike has research interests in applied geography, data science, professional education, and geographic thought and practice.

John Harrington

John Harrington, Jr. is an independent scholar and professional geographer. He retired from Kansas State University in 2018 as Professor Emeritus after a career that included more than 4 decades of teaching, research, and service. He served as Head of the Department of Geography at Kansas State from 1999-2005. Dr. Harrington has research interests in climatology, climate change, coupled natural and human aspects of global change, applied geography, GIScience, geographic thought, and geography education.