A Georaphical Integrated Cirriculum

              As a geography student at Brock, I notice that my classes are not nearly as crowded as other fourth year classes in separate faculties. It has become apparent that there are very few undergraduates planning on completing an honours thesis or returning for a master’s degree. Also, recently coming to my attention was news of my former high school cancelling the grade 11 academic geography classes as a result of minimal enrolment, while many parents also questioned the principal if geography is really necessary for grade nine curriculums. The decline in the interest of geography is alarming because it is a discipline that focuses on developing environmentally responsible and moral citizens. Having completed two high school geography credits in high school and taking education courses in a post-secondary institution, it leads me to believe that this decline in the interest of geography is due to the lack of engaging activity and applicable information to student’s lives.

Converting the high school geography curriculum into an integrated curriculum would be more engaging for students and arouse more interest in the subject. I have designed a rough outline of how high school geography can implement an integrated curriculum based on the model proposed by Drake et. al (2012).  The outline is just an example of how an integrated curriculum can be cohesive with geography in a modern high school. The pre-steps involve knowing the students and topics of study that connect to their lives/experiences (Drake et al. 2012).  If the students are coming from a middle-upper class background, an appropriate subject in the field of geography includes environmental degradation as there seems to be a relationship between the average income of residents in an area and their ecological footprint (myfootprint.org).

Stage one in creating a backward design integrated curriculum includes deciding upon a topic to for lessons, determining the ‘Know’ ‘Do’ and ‘Be’ and creating an exploratory web (Drake et al. 2012). The topic for my project lesson I have chosen is how students’ lifestyles affect the natural environment. The ‘Know’ will consist of the geography of Canada and the effects pollution/waste and transportation have on the environment and potential sustainable solutions. The ‘Do’ will consist of many different tasks, which focus on highlighting students’ twenty-first century skills such as communication, collaboration and creativity; in terms of geography it will also involve mapping, research and presenting. The ‘Be” or final result, is to develop ethical, environmentally responsible citizens who contribute towards a sustainable future.  The ‘Be’ is what teachers should be striving towards developing in geography classrooms. Also, creating an exploratory web will help students understand how their lives directly relate to the topic of study (Drake et. al 2012).

The second stage of the integrated curriculum design involves creating a rich performance assessment task and creating assessment tasks for the students (Drake et al. 2012).  This is a critical step in the process because it involves creating effective lessons that are supposed to develop the twenty-first century skills. I think the most effective term project in high-school geography would involve project based learning in which the students perform research on their contribution to environmental degradation, write papers and carry out presentations which accumulates to a final portfolio on the topic. The marking can be done gradually as different parts of the assignment are handed in such as group work, presentations, research and essays.

The last stage of the integrated curriculum design focuses on developing essential questions and organizing daily instruction. Essential questions in geography must drive the lesson, facilitate discussions and require research to answer. A geographical example relating to my integrated curriculum outline is: In what ways does shopping locally for commercial goods and foods impact the natural environment? After the essential questions have been created, specific days can be devoted to brainstorming, research, and collaboration of results in groups, presentations, and so on. I believe integrated curriculums that incorporate more project-based learning strategies as proposed by Drake et. al (2012) will influence more students to continue enrolling in geography during their academic careers. Making the material more engaging and relevant to students’ lifestyles will certainly result in an increase in interest of the subject and modernize geographical teaching strategies in the classroom.