Rough Notes:
The Importance of Geography – current statement
Geography provokes and answers questions about the natural and human worlds, using different scales of enquiry to view them from different perspectives. It develops knowledge of places and environments throughout the world, an understanding of maps, and a range of investigative and problem solving skills both inside and outside the classroom. As such, it prepares pupils for adult life and employment. Geography is a focus within the curriculum for understanding and resolving issues about the environment and sustainable development. It is also an important link between the natural and social sciences. As pupils study geography, they encounter different societies and cultures. This helps them realize how nations rely on each other. It can inspire them to think about their own place in the world, their values, and their rights and responsibilities to other people and the environment.
Taken from: The School Curriculum and the National Curriculum: values, aims and purposes, 1999, DfES/QCA. (Page 154)
The Importance of Geography – revised statement Option One
We all live our lives geographically. Planet Earth is our home. It is awesome, diverse, inspiring and ever changing. Studying geography invites us to participate more fully in the excitement, enjoyment and challenge of this dynamic world. It draws on personal experience, to help us better understand the places we live in, why they matter and how they are connected to a globalised world. Geography draws from across the physical, cultural, economic and political spheres to illuminate key issues for the present and the future, explored at all scales from the personal to the local and the global. Through geography we learn to appreciate the diversity of landscapes, peoples and cultures. Geography is therefore a vital subject resource for 21st century global citizens, enabling us to face questions of what it means to live sustainably in an interdependent world. Geography helps us investigate and to think critically and creatively about the complexities of places, and different views and feelings relating to places. Geography is studied through enquiry, this requires the formulation of effective questions. Fieldwork and outdoor education are essential to geography. The subject helps develop significant elements of the skills framework, with a strong emphasis on utilising maps and visual images as well as new technologies including Geographical Information. These transferable geographical skills help to equip us for lifelong learning as responsible global citizens.
QCA
The Importance of Geography – revised statement Option Two
We live in a world of amazing beauty, infinite complexity and rigorous challenge. Geography is the subject which opens the door to this dynamic world and prepares each one of us for the role of global citizen in the 21st century. Through studying geography, people of all ages begin to appreciate how places and landscapes are formed, how people and environments interact, what consequences arise from our everyday decisions, and what a diverse range of cultures and societies exist and interconnect. Geography is a subject which builds on young people’s own experiences, helping them to formulate questions, develop their intellectual skills and find answers to issues affecting their lives. It introduces them to distinctive investigative tools such as maps, fieldwork and the use of powerful digital communication technologies. It opens their eyes to the beauty and wonder around them and acts as a source of inspiration and creativity. More than this, it ensures that they appreciate the complexity of attitudes and values which shape the way we use and misuse the environment. Through geography, people learn to value and care for the planet and all its inhabitants.