2020, Vol.9, No.3

Journal of the Association of Korean Geographers 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 1.35

pISSN : 2287-4739 / eISSN : 2733-8991
https://journal.kci.go.kr/JAKG

The purpose of this study is to introduce the competency-based geography curriculum of Ontario in Canada, which is known as its high level of education, and to examine the implications of the Ontario geography curriculum. In Ontario, the citizenship education framework forms the fundamental scheme to realize the vision of geography, or fostering the responsible and active citizen. Within this framework, the Ontario curriculum systematically incorporated the components of geographic inquiry process, concepts of geographic thinking, big ideas and framing questions, and spatial skills to improve geographic competency. Based on this analysis, the following implications were suggested: 1) the importance of the unique geographic concepts and inquiry, 2) the possibility of spatial skills and tools, and 3) the systematic organization of scope and sequence. These three implications show directions of ‘outwards in’, ‘inward outwards’ and ‘crossing inwards’, respectively. This study provides insight into the implementation and development of an effective geography curriculum for promoting competency.

Yaodong (Cave-dwelling) is a ecological adaptation to the local environment on loess plateau in China for thousands of years. This study investigates on the social and cultural representations of Yaodong landscape instead of morphological approach. Yen-an in northern Shaanxi in which traditional Yaodong concentrated on loess plateau is a critical place of state formation in the Communist China. Various symbols and meanings of Yaodong such as ecological eco-friendly architecture, revolution heritage, rural poverty, and political school are being founded out in contemporary China. These various representations change ideas and perceptions of Yaodong and then these transform real regions with policies and practices such as Red Tourism, poverty reduction and rural development, patriotism eduction, and ecological preservation.

This empirical case study contributes to re-thinking the existential division between landscape considered as representational within new cultural geography and landscape considered as non-representational within post-new cultural geography. Specifically, this study focuses on a change to the apparent form of a feng-shui landscape in relation to four collective ancestors’ tombs located near a local-lineage-based village in South Korea, before and after a national reforestation project in the 1970s, to explore how the ontological dualism involved in apprehending this feng-shui landscape has been resolved in the villagers’ lived experiences of this landscape. In doing so, this paper attempts to empirically show that, in the lived experiences of human agents, the representational and the non-representational are inseparably interrelated.