The article explores some ways in which a more unified approach to geography can be brought into the classroom. Foundational to demonstrating cohesion in geography are its concepts. These are the glue that binds topics together, and so creates a scaffold to build up knowledge. Jackson (2006) asserts that key concepts are central to thinking geographically for they provide a language that can help see the connections between places and scales that others frequently missing. The function of second-order concepts is to organize the content and help shape the line of enquiry. In the first lesson students defined development in eight ways, based on those used in the textbook Geog.3, and were then introduced to the indicators of GDP, HDI and happiness economics. To apply this knowledge, students need to paraphrase each definition on a spider diagram, and match definitions to corresponding indicators.
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