Learning Geography with a 'Geography Box'

It seems that geography teaching faces almost the same problems around the world. Geography teachers try to find new methods to teach geography based mainly on pupils' experiences. This paper describes a teaching approach that focuses on what pupils think about geography. The children are asked to prepare and present a box filled with objects that relate to their definitions of geography (a 'geography box'). The children are also asked to justify their choices participating in focus group interviews run by designated facilitators, graduate students from the Department of Education. A total of 84 children from three state schools in Thessaloniki, North Greece, participated, along with 15 facilitators. The majority of the objects chosen by the children provided a definition of geography not closely related to the curriculum of geography, whereas a significant number of the chosen items were chiefly related to geographical skills. The findings showed that the children participate in their own learning and geographical enquiry and relate geography and geography lessons to real life. These findings are discussed within the context of children's geographical understanding and learning, providing helpful insight to support the development of the Greek primary school geography curriculum and approaches to teaching.