Sustainability and Geography Education

The balance between man and nature has been disturbed in many places on Earth. At some places, however, we can see how people have been able to organize their society in a more sustainable way. One of the important conditions for a more sustainable society is to have knowledge of the functioning of the different systems that feature both humans and nature on Earth. Geography is the discipline where this knowledge is available. In spite of many good ideas about modern geography education, geography education in many schools is of low quality or not existing at all. The central question of this contribution is what kind of geography education can be helpful for the citizens of today and tomorrow to learn in a sustainable way about sustainability and other key issues in our society. Young (2008) and others argue that we need “Powerful Knowledge”, which means that we need knowledge to critically think about the systems we are living in. Geospatial technologies can be very useful tools in the process of knowledge acquisition and presentation. Systematic and meaningful geographic learning can be sustainable and enables people to travel on planet Earth with a different view.