The Anthropocene and the sustainable development goals: key elements in geography higher education?

Abstract

Purpose The current “Anthropocene” epoch has witnessed an imbalanced global change, but it is an opportunity to design a better and sustainable future. Sustainability criteria need to be fully implemented in political institutions, companies and universities. Moreover, sustainable pedagogies must accompany the process in terms of students’ professional competences to overcome crisis situations. This paper aims to evaluate geography degrees in Spain to corroborate whether students and teachers consider that students are prepared to address the challenges of global change. Design/methodology/approach The research is focused on the sustainable development goals (SDGs), a clear and easily identifiable framework for society that reflects the principles of the UN 2030 Agenda. A statistically validated questionnaire answered by 319 respondents has been used. Data analysis with descriptive and inferential techniques was performed. Findings The results show that geography degrees do not meet the needs of students, for whom career opportunities will be related to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda; there are significant gaps between the perception of teachers and students; some geographical topics are undervalued; SDGs are more present in optional subjects; and there is a need to “sustain” the curriculum, following this highly valued framework. Originality/value Geography educative programs had scarcely been empirically evaluated to check a sustainability framework implementation. This research provides innovative and unprecedented self-assessment results from higher education agents, in an empirical and statistically validated way.

Landscape Education Two Decades after the European Landscape Convention—A Study with Trainee Teachers

“…Improving the education about landscape of teachers (for instance, by including this specific topic in the curriculum of the didactics of geography, like with other lateral issues, such as gender perspectives and education in sustainability) following the principles of geographical education for sustainable development (ESD) [39]. It should be also of great convenience to promote landscape education in other fields to cover some landscape dimensions beyond the geographical perspective, such as literary narratives [40,41], mathematical spatial properties [42,43], physical education outdoors [44], history sceneries [30], artistic expression [45,46], and more.…”

Designing Online Workshops for Teacher Trainees: Heritage Mapping with Web GIS Story Maps

“…Critical heritage values were highlighted, adjusted to the theoretical lesson at the beginning of the workshop. Not forgetting an ethical approach when transmitting content is very important in the sustainable development paradigm that frames the current world through the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Leininger-Frézal & Sprenger, 2022;Martínez-Hernández & Mínguez, 2023), understanding that education is a fundamental means for global citizen formation, based on critical democratic thinking (De Arriba-Rivas & Ibáñez-Ruiz del Portal, 2023). Digital mapping experiences have been also successfully used to promote a global digital citizenship (Panek & Netek, 2019).…”