The Use of Inquiries to Develop Geographical Thinking

“This article was previously published in Enjeux de l’univers social (Vol. 16 #2) when the author was candidate to doctorate at Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. He is now a professor at Université Laval”

Geographic education thus contributes to teaching students to think independently about complex territorial issues; in other words, to apply geographical thinking. But what is geographical thinking and how can we train students to think this way? This article will briefly explain what is meant by geographical thinking, present an example of the geographical inquiry process and list the conditions that are required to develop this way of thinking.

Geographical thinking
Generally speaking, geographical thinking is a specific way of looking at the world. Two fundamental aspects underpin such a view. On the one hand, geography takes a particular interest in the relationship between society and territory (Mérenne-Schoumaker, 2012; Morgan, 2013), that is it seeks to understand how humans adapt to territory, how they use it, develop it, change it and organize it according to their needs. On the other hand, the notion of scale is paramount in geography, as we are interested in the different relationships between the local, the regional and the global, with the aim of better understanding the interdependence between the actors who occupy territories (Jackson, 2006).

In addition to these two fundamental aspects, geographical thinking requires several “intellectual operations” to use the terminology of the ministère de l’Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport [MELS] (2011), which students are likely to employ when studying a territorial issue. In this way, they are engaged in their development as critically thinking citizens. However, ministerial documents suggest the use of relatively broad intellectual operations such as “establish facts” or “establish connections between facts”. In some cases, these operations cut across the world of social sciences and even all other subjects. From here stems the need to suggest a way to highlight the specificity of geographical thinking in relation to territorial issues. This paper is primarily based on the MELS’ evaluation frameworks (2011), on  Duquette, Sharpe, Bahbahani and Huynh (2016) and on Hertig (2018). Like the latter, I have added examples of questions that can lead students to  think geographically using the  intellectual operations that follow. 

Geographical importance (Duquette et coll., 2016)

While reflecting on a territorial issue, we must question its importance and apprehend its relevance, which leads to a better understanding of the world:

• • • • Of all the issues on the planet, why is this one relevant and significant? 
      • Why does the territorial issue deserve our attention?

Location (Hertig, 2018) / Locating a territory (MELS, 2011)

Locating a territorial issue is more than simply placing it on a map. It is about trying to understand why a specific place presents the conditions that lead to the issue:

• • • • In which territory is the territorial issue taking place? 
      • Why there and not elsewhere?

Characterizing a territory (MELS, 2011)

In addition to describing the territory in terms of its assets and constraints, characterizing a territory involves thinking about the relationship between society and the territory, as well as how humans adapt to and use their geographic space:

• • • • What are the territory’s assets and constraints?
      • How does society adapt to its territory? 
      • How does it use its territory?

Determining the groups involved and their intentions (Hertig, 2018)

At the heart of social geography, a territorial issue presupposes that groups of stakeholders have divergent perspectives on how the territory should be used.

• • • • Who are the stakeholders involved in the issue? 
      • What are their needs or intentions with regard to the territory?

Scale (Hertig, 2018)

As mentioned above, a geographical view of the world implies taking into account the multiscalar dimension of territorial issues. With globalization, the shift from local to global and vice versa can often bring new perspectives on an issue, and even involve new groups:

• • • • At what scale am I considering the issue?
      • What other scales do I need to consider?

Geographical value judgments (Duquette et al., 2016)

The study of a territorial issue leads students to make a well-thought-out geographical judgment based on geographical information with regard to the human actions to be prioritized, which is an important contribution of geographical thinking to critical citizenship. This judgment inevitably involves ethical reflection on their own values, as well as on the various needs of the groups involved:

• • • • To what extent are the human actions and their outcomes desirable and responsible?

Geographical inquiry: a process worth considering

For students to be able to apply these intellectual operations, it is necessary to offer them opportunities to develop their geographical thinking skills. Geographical inquiry appears to be a promising educational tool in this respect. The aim of this approach is to confront learners with a geographical problem, in the form of one or more mobilizing questions which they must try to answer with the help of a variety of documents. To illustrate each step of the process, a concrete example of a geographical inquiry on Las Vegas is provided. This investigation is part of a study of a tourist area, but could also be used to study metropolises (urban areas). In all cases, the territorial issue is related to the hydrographic situation of this agglomeration, which, before COVID-19, welcomed millions of visitors a year who came to enjoy casinos and golf courses, among other things.

The geographical issue

Known as the city of gambling and vice, Las Vegas is a source of concern for many researchers and citizens alike, but for an entirely different reason than its conventions and practices: its hydrographic situation. As it is located in the most barren state in the USA, we can, of course, assume the climate and low rainfall explains this situation. But what if human actions were also a contributing factor, with the Bellagio fountain and all the luxurious hotels and casinos that make up the city? Indeed, a number of human and environmental factors undermine sustainable water management: current consumption and use of the resource, fluctuating rainfall, unpredictable weather, high levels of evaporation, and so on. What’s more, the drying-up of Lake Mead, near Las Vegas, could have serious consequences for the Colorado River. The river provides water and, indirectly, electricity to millions of Americans. With Las Vegas welcoming millions of visitors every year, we have to wonder about the impact of the tourist industry on the region’s hydrographic situation. If tourists were aware of the precariousness of the water situation in Las Vegas, should they boycott the city?

In addition to motivating students, the geographical issue is designed to help them discover the geographical importance of the issue they must handle. This introduction is essential to give meaning to learning geography, to arouse students’ curiosity, to bring out their prior knowledge of the subject and to get them to ask themselves questions on the issue (Hertig and Varcher, 2004).

Documentation

To answer this mobilizing question, the teacher invites students to use a documentation file guiding them in their analysis if necessary. The file is made up of 9 documents containing a variety of geographic information: [1] a thematic map on water-related risks in the western United States; [2] a climatogram of the region; [3] a diagram on the number of tourists who visit Las Vegas; [4] a diagram of the water elevation level of Lake Mead; [5-6] satellite images of the region in 1984, then in 2016 (see below); and, finally [7-8-9] three newspaper articles presenting the viewpoints of different stakeholder groups. To support their work, the students are given a very basic analysis grid, which requires them to collate the geographical information they gather from each  document. They are asked to note the title of the document, the year of publication, the type of document and what the document tells them about the issue.

Satellite images of Las Vegas and Lake Mead between 1984 and 2016.
Source: NASA Earth Observatory (online). Visualizing the Highs and Lows of Lake Mead. Accessed on https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=88099

Documentation files aim at presenting students with a wide range of geographical information, so as to stimulate geographical thinking. By analyzing the documents, they will locate the issue, characterize the territory being studied, identify the groups involved and their intentions, and then use different geographic scales. It should be noted that the composition of the documentary file is complex in three respects. First, the choice of documents can be difficult, as each one should shed new light on the issue at hand and contribute to enriching the students’ understanding of what is at stake. Documents must therefore be complementary, without being repetitive. What’s more, it’s sometimes difficult to find documents that are sufficiently accessible for pupils and that present the exact geographic information you want them to consider. In this case, thematic atlases and certain websites can be extremely useful resources [Among others, Éditions Autrement offer thematic atlases on many of the issues covered in the training program, for example, the Atlas mondial de l’eau (Blanchon, 2017) and the Atlas des énergies mondiales (Barré and Mérenne-Schoumaker, 2017). Numerous thematic maps are also available on the websites Le Monde diplomatique (https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/cartes/) and SciencePo : Atelier de cartographie https://bibnum.sciencespo.fr/s/catalogue/item-set/1717242)]. Secondly, as the quantity of documents is limited, they don’t necessarily do justice to the complexity of territorial issues. In this respect, geographical inquiry should be seen as a partial educational situation, marked out by the teacher according to the time and documents available, but which nonetheless enables students to think geographically on the basis of the information available to them. Finally, it’s important to accept that not all content is of equal value. While some of the simpler documents provide information of a factual nature, such as the number of visitors to Las Vegas per year, others are more complex, showing the controversial nature of the issue and the perspectives of the various groups involved. The time devoted to analyzing the documentation may therefore differ from one document to the next.

Geographical judgment

After analyzing the documentation file, students are invited to make a geographical judgment by taking a position on the issue and attempting to answer the mobilizing question in a short text. When I conducted this inquiry in the context of initial teacher training, the positions expressed by future teachers varied with regard to the impact of the tourism industry on water consumption. For some, the tourism industry is obviously part of the problem, but its responsibility is minimal, given that a number of measures have been put in place to limit water consumption, notably in hotels and casinos. In fact, the people who stand out as the biggest consumers of water are the city’s residents, some of whom share the belief that the ideal lawn should always be green. A 2013 study revealed that hotel industry’s water consumption in Las Vegas was only 7% of overall demand. For golf courses, it was 6%. By contrast, residential demand from families was 60% of total consumption (Larose, 2015). Others considered that since the tourism industry is an economic engine in the region, and therefore a significant number of residents make a living from it, tourists would be indirectly responsible for the hydrographic situation. This example shows that the complexity of territorial issues makes it difficult to reach a consensus, since many groups are involved and several interpretations are possible. What’s more, although the two positions presented are based primarily on data relating to water consumption, tourists leave a far greater ecological footprint. Geographical judgment is therefore more broadly based on a combination of environmental, economic, political and social concerns.

In short, everything within the geographical inquiry can be personalized to suit the students and the time available: the mobilizing question, which can be general or subdivided into several specific questions; the number of documents to be analyzed; the level of difficulty of the geographic information in the documents; the duration of the inquiry, which can be carried out within one period or spread over several lessons; the students’ final assignment, which can take several forms, such as a written text or a video. In addition, the students can initially analyze the documents with some guidance to progressively assess them by themselves.

Required conditions for the development of students’ geographical thinking skills

By way of summary, there are four conditions that appear to be required when planning a geographical inquiry designed to foster the development of geographical thinking.

Teaching geography through problematization

For more than thirty years now, papers on the didactics of geography have emphasized the importance of confronting students with geographical problems (Philippot, 2012; Hertig and Varcher, 2004). Whether with the support of the teacher or independently, the study of geography should lead students to question the world in which they live. In this respect, the questions associated with intellectual operations can be used to stimulate geographical thinking. Furthermore, as mentioned above, the choice of territorial issue and the angle from which it is analyzed are decisive factors in the course of the investigation, particularly with regard to student motivation.

Getting students to consider multiple perspectives

Territory is an issue when several groups of stakeholders do not share the same intentions regarding its use, for example, between the preservation of natural spaces and urban or industrial development projects). Faced with such issues, there is no single, consensual solution that students should find, which makes the study of geography all the more complex. Rather, they are required to consider and understand multiple perspectives in order to understand the issue and interpret it in a reasoned way.

Provide geographic information, not answers

It is critical to provide students with information rather than a direct interpretation of the issue. Indeed, teaching geography provides an ideal opportunity to analyze a variety of geographical information (maps, diagrams, tables, articles, etc.), an intellectual task that helps develop geographical thinking. It is therefore important to take advantage of these teaching moments to enable learners to discover and interpret a territorial issue for themselves, just as they must and will do as citizens.

Supporting students in analyzing information

With regard to the previous point, it is obviously necessary to support students when they are confronted with a variety of geographical information. Analyzing this information necessarily involves learning to develop a certain autonomy in the use of geographical techniques: interpreting a map, a written document, an iconographic document, etc. (MELS, 2006).

Conclusion

Through the geographic inquiry process, students are called upon to train themselves to think geographically in order to better apprehend territorial and environmental issues that are real. As one high school student involved in my doctoral project put it when asked about the importance of studying these issues: “Outside of social studies, there’s no one who’s going to come and teach you these things.” Geography classes therefore represent a privileged opportunity, in the course of students’ school careers, to help them decode the world’s complexity and exercise critical citizenship.

Bibliography

Barré, B. and Mérenne-Schoumaker, B. (2017). Atlas des énergies mondiales : un monde en transition. Paris: France. Éditions Autrement.

Blanchon, D. (2017). Atlas mondial de l’eau : défendre et partager notre bien commun. Paris: France. Éditions Autrement.

Duquette, C., Sharpe, B., Bahbahani, K. and Huynh, N. T. (2016). Teaching Geographical Thinking. The Critical Thinking Consortium and the Royal Canadian Geographical Society publishers.

Hertig, P. (2016). Des outils de pensée pour appréhender la complexité dans le cadre de l’éducation en vue du développement durable. In M.-É. Éthier and É. Mottet (dir.), Didactique de l’histoire, de la géographie et de l’éducation à la citoyenneté : Recherches et pratiques (p. 117-128). Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium: Éditions de Boeck.

Hertig, P. (2018). Géographie scolaire et pensée de la complexité. L’Information géographique, 82(3), 99-114.

Hertig, P. and Varcher, P. (2004). Pour une didactique qui donne sens à la géographie scolaire. In M. Hasler (dir.), Développement et perspectives de la géographie scolaire en Suisse (p. 17-35). Berne, Switzerland: Groupe de travail Didactique de la géographie. MELS, 2011.

Jackson, P. (2006). Thinking Geographically. Geography, 91(3), 199-204.

Larose, Y. (2015). Le défi de l’eau à Las Vegas. Journal Le fil, 50(31). Accessed on https://www.lefil.ulaval.ca/defi-leau-las-vegas-37491/

Mérenne-Schoumaker, B. (2012). Didactique de la géographie : Organiser les apprentissages. Brussels, Belgium: Éditions de Boeck.

Ministère de l’Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport [MELS] (2006). Programme de formation de l’école québécoise : éducation préscolaire, enseignement primaire : Version approuvée. Qubec: Government of Quebec.

Ministère de l’Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport [MELS] (2011). Cadre d’évaluation des apprentissages : Géographie. Quebec: Government of Quebec.

Morgan, J. (2013). What do we mean by thinking geographically? In D. Lambert and M. Jones (dir.), Debates in geography education (p. 273-281). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

NASA Earth Observatory (online). Visualizing the Highs and Lows of Lake Mead. Accessed on  https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=88099

Philippot, T. (2012). Enseigner à l’école primaire une géographie problématisée : un défi ? Nouveaux c@hiers de la recherche en éducation, 15(1), 21-34.