This article presents a case study that highlights the benefits and limitations of Web-based video in lab sections of The Geographer's Craft, an upper-level undergraduate course in which students apply digital geographic methods. Over three years (2010-2013), the authors experimented with different teaching strategies utilizing Web-based video for…

Field-based undergraduate geography courses provide numerous pedagogical benefits including an opportunity for students to acquire employable skills in an applied context. This article presents one unique approach to teaching geographic field methods using paleoecological research. The goals of this course are to teach students key geographic…

Fieldwork is an essential component of undergraduate geographic education, but with growing enrollment and limited resources few first-year instructors incorporate this activity in their courses. This article reports on the challenges of incorporating fieldwork into a large first-year course and the strategies adopted to respond to these…

A twelve-question framework for teaching, learning, and assessing environmental issues was created through analysis of environmental textbooks and interviews with professors and researchers who specialize in the environment. Concepts in the framework include: causes, scale, spatial distribution, longevity, consequences, risks, economic…

Through an instructional approach, this article offers a template for a classroom-based geography capstone course grounded in pedagogical elements of synthesis and reflection, as based on exploration of ten key geographic ideas. It provides insights into course goals, structure, and components for instructors who may wish to implement it in…

Internships can be a valuable experience for geography majors, helping them confirm their choice of an area of emphasis in the discipline, giving them real world experience, and providing contacts that can help them gain full-time employment. This article examines student perception of the relative effectiveness of a semidirected internship…

This study examines the regionalization of Africa through analysis of forty-two English-language geography of Africa texts written for undergraduates between 1953 and 2004. Authors identify regions with reference to one or more variables. Some authors provided no explanation for their regionalization; others labored mightily to justify their…

Increasing multicultural course offerings in the undergraduate curriculum is a challenge for geography programs. Effective approaches to teaching multicultural geography of the United States include emphasizing institutional affects on minority populations and the life experiences and geographic expressions of minority groups. This article shares…

This article draws upon the author's experiences with designing and teaching a lower-level undergraduate course, Geography and Gender. It is proposed that there is a relative lack of resources available for conducting geography courses on gender, feminism, and/or sexuality and as such, this article addresses issues of text selection, course…

During academic year 1999-2000, the Geography Department at Michigan State University (MSU) launched a program of online geography courses. Since then, four undergraduate online geography courses have been collectively developed and delivered to over 4,500 domestic and international students in association with MSU's Virtual University Design and…

The discipline of geography in the United States has not done a good job of attracting people, other than Asians, from underrepresented ethnic groups. This article examines undergraduate geography programs in the United States to understand better the status of their ethnic diversity, particularly regarding Hispanics and African Americans, and to…

Undergraduate geography field courses are relatively rare at American universities, though they can exemplify well the fundamental tenets of learner-centered education. This article reports on an intensive three-week field analysis course taught at Northern Arizona University at Flagstaff, within the Department of Geography, Planning, and…

The innovative energies directed toward high school and freshman college geography in recent years could now be turned to upper division curricula with advantage. (Author)

Vision and mission statements are the foundation for the types of undergraduate degrees departments confer as well as other types of academic programs such as pre-major, certificate, and distance education curricula. Critical to each department should be careful administration of course selections and offerings and management of academic majors,…

This report is based on the observation of about 100 students in a college program that engages the exclusive attention of students in the study of contemporary geography for one quarter, generally at the junior year, which is usually the first term of their major program. A stylized syllabus with selected readings is presented. (Author/ND)