Geolocating Endangered Heritage: An Educational Strategy to Enhance Geographical Thinking Among Prospective Social Science Teachers

Abstract

Geography education can make use of heritage and socially relevant issues in order to foster geographical and critical thinking and improve social science initial teacher training. This research presents the results of a study that implemented the ArcGIS Survey123 mobile app with a group of 57 Spanish early-childhood education pre-service teachers with the aim of examining their conceptions of heritage and to explore the potential of the use of geolocation tools after an intervention. The study was able to assess prospective teachers’ ability to analyze endangered heritage, while also identifying the typology and spatial distribution of heritage elements all across Spain that they selected and photographed during the intervention. Results also helped understand the way participants assessed the importance of heritage elements and the main arguments that they used, as well as the causes of anthropic deterioration that they identified. Prospective teachers’ opinions regarding the use of this geolocating tool were also addressed. Finally, a discussion about the possibilities and potential of integrating heritage education and geolocation into social science initial teacher training is presented.