For most of my career, I feel like I have been holding the keys to teaching this tricky subject. Without these keys, there is no easy way to make a start. (You can’t hotwire a teenager). Your journey to confidence in the geography classroom begins with the core Geography vocabulary. Let’s stay focussed on making a strong foundation of vocabulary for Geography and understand there is much more to come.
The three most important pieces of vocabulary for Geography
Whatever the Geographic topic we are studying, these are three essential Geography terms that will make everyone in the classroom feel confident about what they are doing and where they are going next. Whether we are studying the water cycle, plate tectonics or urban sprawl, no matter what the issue is, us Geographers will need to think about CAUSES, IMPACTS and RESPONSES by people. It is time to breathe a sigh of relief as you now hold the keys to every single topic and can begin your planning of how to teach Geography based on this.
What are the causes of geographic issues
Now we have this starting term, we apply it to every topic.
- cause of fires
- causes of floods
- causes of earthquakes
- causes of overpopulation
- and so on…
We are still in the introduction, but rest assured I have a scaffold or thinking structure which utilises other geographic vocabulary to facilitate deep exploration of the causes. Lets explore this a little using the example of wildfires. An example cause of wildfires could include social causes such as being lit by an arsonist. An economic cause could be the development of forestry for timber which can provide fuel in a wildfire. Environmental causes are very important and can include dry weather, low humidity and a change in wind direction. Policy of suppressing fires may contribute or it could be a lack of technology. Whilst I’ve touched on most but not all, we have an acronym called SHEEPT that has you and your students covered to be guided through how to think about the many causes of geographic issues.
Within our course videos and downloadable resources is ALL you need to develop the skills required for your students to deeply think about the CAUSES. Our SHEEPT handout will have your applying this excellent structure routinely.
What are the impacts of geographic issues
Naturally, we flow onto impacts within every one of our topic studies. So, we flip to thinking about impacts of fires, impacts of floods, impacts of earthquakes and overpopulation or whatever your current topic might be. Again, we are empowered with an acronym or thinking routine. In most cases, emphasis will lie on the Social, Economic and Environmental impacts. You’re advanced students may consider all of SHEEPT, however, most impacts are covered by SEE.
Remember, there is a proforma scaffold available to download to structure your teaching and your students thinking for the impacts of geographic issues too. Our video on this will build your confidence to be classroom ready.
Responses to geographic issues
Responses bring complexity to a topic, but also opportunity for depth of detail. Of course, we have it all covered with downloadable scaffolds which ensure that you and your students have clarity, consistency and support. This part of your study will require thinking about the scale of response from local, national to global, the type of response (Social, Environmental or Economic) as well as the effectiveness (i.e. quality) of the response. Again, thinking about wildfires, there are a range of responses. The fire brigade will be dispatched (locally), safety messages are promoted on TV and radio (nationally) and globally there are measures being taken to address atmospheric warming.
With the set of three keys; cause, impact and response and the support available at Ignite Geography, you have now begun your journey to confidence.
