Teaching Geo-space Through Socioscientific Issues: When Earth Geography Meets Space Geography
摘要
The idea of using topics from Astronomy and especially planetary environments in education frameworks is one of the major concerns of space agencies and organizations. In this chapter, we present our research for reconceptualizing the Geography curriculum by incorporating Planetary Science topics through the model of geospheres and the socioscientific issues (SSI) context. The use of SSI topics such as climate change and resource management enhances the interdisciplinarity of Geography courses and links the terrestrial processes to the ones observed on other planets. The significant key point that arises from this approach highlights the impact of these processes on human lives and decision-making and vice versa. It also reveals the interconnection among Earth’s systems and emphasizes the principles of sustainability and ethical consideration in terrestrial environments and beyond. The pilot implementation of this research with groups of in-service educators showed that this methodology has the potential to be incorporated successfully into the Geography curriculum, engaging students with the complex challenges of contemporary global concerns. Combining Geography and Planetary Science within an SSI framework aspires to cultivate students’ attitudes to understand and deal with global and cosmic issues.