The Spatial Experience for Teaching Geography in the Anthropocene

Abstract

The contemporary period is disrupted by multiple and interdependent crises. The Anthropocene is the concept designating the fact that, for the first time, a geological epoch would be defined by human action. It would be a matter of rethinking the relationship to knowledge and the methods of its transmission, particularly relevant to geography and its teaching in schools, both at primary and secondary levels. What strategies should be developed for teaching geography in a way that is civic-minded, responsible, participatory, and forward-looking, but also embodied, sensitive, and humanistic? The question that now arises is: Why and how can scholars take into account juvenile spatiality when thinking about learning? What avenues could be favoured to bring the relational process and the environmental paradigm into the geography classroom? The idea is to revive a traditional geography practice of field investigation, while allowing participants to have spatial experiences.