Geography is a subject that studies the environment as the home of people. It seeks to explore how environments emerge by natural processes, how societies produce, organise, use and misuse environments, and how societies themselves are influenced by the environments in which they are located. Thus, geography studies the relationships and connections between people and environments, focusing on space, places, and regions, addressing and questioning both short-term and longer-term processes and their resultant patterns. In other words geographers ask where things are located on the surface of the Earth, why they are located where they are, how places differ from one another, and how people interact with the environment. In fact a major concern of all geographical studies is the relationship of humanity to environments at a variety of levels from the local to the global with particular focus on how such interactions can be managed and improved in a sustainable way. Geographers were, in fact among the first scientists to sound the alarm that human induced changes to the environment were beginning to threaten the balance of life itself. In this connection, geography involves the study of contemporary issues of sustainability such as climate change, disappearing biodiversity and the depletion of natural resources. Geography provides us with a distinctive set of skills and tools with which to explore environments and people particularly those associated with mapping and other forms of graphicacy.
Geography as a discipline enables us to understand the Earth we are living in from a spatial perspective. As a school subject it stimulates students’ interest in and a sense of wonder about people, places and environments. Moreover, geography enables students to explore and understand the relationship between human beings and the Earth. It provides also the essential background knowledge for the understanding of many important local and global issues such as climate change, availability of water resources and urban problems and how these could be resolved and manages in a sustainable manner. Geography makes both a distinctive and a wider contribution to the curriculum. It is an essential component in preparing young people for life in the twenty-first century. As the pace of change quickens, communications get faster and challenges to the environment multiply, a knowledge and understanding of geography is more vital than ever.
Geographical education is indispensable to the development of responsible and active citizens in the present and future world. Geography can be an informing and stimulating subject at all levels in education, and contributes to a lifelong enjoyment and understanding of our world. Learners require global geographical awareness in order to ensure effective cooperation on a broad range of economic, political, cultural and environmental issues in a shrinking world.
The main aim of this website is to bring together teachers of geography on a single platform, through which they can share good practices and resources in order to be able to make geography teaching and learning an enjoyable, creative and stimulating experience for our students. On this site one can access the latest documentation issued by the geography section within the CMeLD about new curricula, assessment reports, circulars, ideas for organising controlled assessment such as fieldwork and project work, links to other useful geographical sites and much more. Teachers who would like to contribute and share with us any of their resources are most welcome to do so. Our commitment will always be to make geography lessons fun.
