What are Geography's Key Concepts?

Key Concepts in Geography

It is clear that thinking about key concepts in a Geography curriculum can be incredibly useful in curriculum making. However, the debate as to what the key concepts of geography are rages on and there is no clear consensus.

Agreement at school level

There is unlikely to ever be complete agreement on which concepts are the most important for a young person’s progression in geography (Taylor, 2018).

Scale

What the key concepts of geography are will, of course, differ with the scale of thinking too:
- Are we referring to the key concepts of the whole discipline?
- Are we thinking about the key concepts for students to develop an understanding of at Key Stage 3?

Complexities

Finally, many of the concepts that are important for ‘thinking like a geographer’ are used with different meanings. Examples include sustainability, globalisation and development (Roberts, 2017).

End goal

The most important thing is that whichever concepts you are studying in your curriculum should be studied in such a way that student’s understanding is deepened and embedded over time.

1Organising a KS3 Geography Curriculum

1.1Introduction