Teaching critical physical geography

Abstract

Critical Physical Geography (CPG) emerged as a discipline around 2014 and has since excited many human and physical geographers, as well researchers in political ecology, geomorphology, science and technology, and environmental science whose research, critiques, and methodologies have formed much of the basis of CPG. However, because of its recent emergence as a discipline, and because of the challenges in teaching transdisciplinary methods, there is a scarcity of literature on methods to teach CPG. The needs for these methods are exceedingly important right now as unprecedented, wicked environmental problems of the Anthropocene continue to emerge, and as structures of power, which have artificially separated the study of humans and the environment, are re-evaluated. CPG provides instructors with cross-disciplinary tools to explore environmental problems, and besides its focus on intertwining biophysical and social methodologies, it emphasizes environmental and social justice, as well critical explorations of power and knowledge production. This paper provides an example of methodologies used to teach a CPG class on contamination in community gardens where students examined how environmental justice policies and funding initiatives failed to reduce high concentrations of contamination in each garden.