Technology has revolutionized geography as a profession and has had a significant impact on the teaching of the subject in K–12 and higher education. Geographic Information Systems (CIS) have transformed the work of professional geographers and university geography faculty. GIS is also a powerful technology for geography teachers at the pre-college level. With this new tool, students can engage in serious inquiry about issues of local and global significance using authentic data. Current research findings about GIS in schools are summarized, along with exemplary GIS projects. Realizing the potential of GIS in the classroom will require new efforts to prepare elementary and secondary geography teachers.

The interview with Prof. David Lambert resulted from hearing presentations at national and international conferences on the topic of powerful knowledge, especially as the idea pertains to teaching and learning geography. The questions were submitted to Prof. Lambert and he responded in writing. His elaborations and clarifications of the conceptual and practical implications of powerful knowledge are contained in the following interview.What is the origin of powerful knowledge as an educational concern? This is probably quite a long story: perhaps John Morgan's Foreword to Young, Lambert, Roberts, and Roberts' (2014) Knowledge and the Future School: curriculum and social justice summarises the story usefully and succinctly! (see also Morgan, forthcoming). My version is as follows.In the early 1970s, Michael Young, a student of Basil Bernstein, published the book Knowledge and Control. This has been enormously influential, introducing the idea that the school curriculum was in the hands of, and served the interests of, the powerful. The school curriculum (the argument ran) excluded, or alienated, the working class kids, for example. It did not speak to them. The whole structure was aligned to make sure that middle-class kids succeeded in getting the qualifications required for the professions (etc.) and so power relations and the status quo were maintained. Schools delivered the knowledge of the powerful (and these days we would say, therefore, exclude various indigenous knowledge, for example).

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Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) had become a priority in many school systems. Geography has a tradition of investigating human-environment interactions and geography education is vital to make sense of sustainable development (SD). In this paper, the authors aimed to contribute to the implementation of ESD and SD in middle school geography, in The People’s Republic of China. This research employed a series of methods to analyze the content in (SD) in middle school geography standards and textbooks. The research surveyed geography teachers (n = 237) and assessed geography students (n = 246). Results exemplified both positive and negative conclusions from the data. Primarily, the findings suggested that geography education was important to ESD implementation, although the requirements for SD are low in the selected middle schools. The SD content was reflected clearly in the content standards and textbooks, but it was not evenly distributed in geography education. Many geography teachers in China have ample geography and interdisciplinary knowledge and they can use textbooks and other teaching methods to teach SD. The students’ performance, in a sample of four key schools, was considered “OK”, however there was still room for improvement. Most students were familiar with people, resources, environmental problems, and climate change, however, most were unable to grasp the factual knowledge about SD, such as international events and documents, latest predicted data, and research on global warming, as well as the indicators used in the specific SD assessment. Suggestions include providing students with more practical activities and a chance to do hands-on experiments, as well as building student organizations and clubs, improve Teachers’ knowledge, and understanding through teacher training program and build a platform for communicating ideas of SD through modern communication technology. Ideas of SD should be integrated into students’ daily life.

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