Geography comes alive through fieldwork

This article is based on two teacher professional learning workshops I have delivered within the last 6 months: firstly in New Zealand at the 2015 AGTA Conference; and secondly in Brisbane as part of the 2015 AGTA Roadshow. The focus of these workshops was developed to support key ideas in the Foundation to Year 10 Australian Curriculum: Geography and also in response to requests from specialist and non-specialist teachers around Australia who were interested in defining Geography and the purpose of fieldwork in a meaningful way, as well as in finding opportunities for fieldwork suitable for implementation during class time. Recent Australian-based research about factors attributable to accomplished Geography teaching in schools (Kriewaldt, 2010) reveals nine standards - four of them are of particular relevance to this article: 'Knowing geography and geography curriculum'; 'Fostering geographical inquiry and fieldwork'; 'Understanding geography teaching - pedagogical practices'; and 'Progressing professional growth and development.