Geografie 2026, 131, 305-330
From theory to application: Planning geography lessons to develop geographical thinking
, Petr Knecht2, Alexandr Moos3
1University of Pardubice, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Department of English and American Studies, Pardubice, Czechia
2University of Ostrava, Faculty of Education, Department of Pedagogy and Andragogy, Ostrava, Czechia
3Masaryk University, Faculty of Education, Department of Geography, Brno, Czechia
Received January 2026
Accepted June 2026
Geographical thinking has become a central aim of geography education internationally. However, student teachers and teachers still have limited conceptual and didactic support for translating this aim into lesson planning and classroom practice. Geography didactics needs a coherent way of developing geographical thinking in teacher education. This article builds on the geographical concepts chessboard, an existing framework that connects key and organising geographical concepts and supports systematic geographical inquiry. Drawing on the distinction between the content dimension of geographical thinking (geographical concepts) and its procedural dimension (geographical questioning), we show how the framework visualises the structure of geographical thinking and supports its didactic transformation. The approach is illustrated through the post-industrial Rosice-Oslavany region and the intersection of the concepts of place and interpretation. The article contributes to geography didactics by linking disciplinary concepts with geographical questioning, offers a practical tool for geography teacher education, and concludes by distinguishing different levels of pupil engagement in geographical thinking.
Funding
This paper was supported by the project GA23−05562S Who teaches future geography teachers? Social representations of teachers and teacher education.
