With the advancement of basic education curriculum reform, the exploration of competency-oriented teaching models has continued to deepen. STEM education advocates interdisciplinary integration and authentic problem solving, off ering possibilities for the transformation of middle school geography instruction. From a STEM perspective, integrating science and technology education into middle school geography embodies the foundational value of science and technology talent competencies, the value of cultivating authentic problem-solving abilities, the knowledge-construction value of disciplinary integration, the practice-oriented action-paradigm value, and the engineering-design output value. This study, by analyzing the element mechanism of precise adaptation and bidirectional reinforcement, as well as the teaching-driving mechanism of two-dimensional linkage and mutually reinforcing symbiosis, taking“Promoting New Energy Vehicles”as an example, constructs four instructional pathways for integrating science and technology education into middle school geography: spatial context anchoring, multi-dimensional inquiry cycles, outcome design and iteration, and systematic integration and presentation, in order to provide practical references for integrating science and technology education into middle school geography and cultivating students' geographical key competences and STEM competences.

Individuals’emotional attachment to the family-country community, rooted in“topophilia”, originates from “place ballet”and often remains in a tacit state.“Separation”can trigger reflection and reconstruction, prompting this sense of belonging to shift from“natural attachment”to“conscious identification”. The key to cultivating familycountry sentiment in geography teaching lies in guiding students through a complete process of“simulated separation– re-embedding”via carefully designed situations and tasks. This process requires grounding in hometown attachment to understand national conditions, and comprehensively employing strategies such as“creating cognitive distance”, “establishing liminal situations”,“simulating culture shock”, and“guiding responsible action”to guide students to develop a rational and profound family-country identifi cation based on their sense of place.

The reconstruction and design of academic quality constitute a key task in the Senior High School Geography Curriculum Standards: Daily Revised Edition (2017 Edition, Revised in 2025) (hereinafter referred to as the“Daily Revised Curriculum Standards”), and represent an important aspect that frontline teachers should pay close attention to in geography teaching. Previous studies have shown that there is relatively limited research on how academic quality guides teaching; however, this issue has become increasingly urgent following the promulgation of the Daily Revised Curriculum Standards. Based on this context, this study elaborates on the fundamental attributes embedded in geography academic quality from four dimensions: geographical nature, integrative nature, normative nature, and developmental nature. Furthermore, by incorporating the expressions of behavioral conditions, behavioral levels, and behavioral performance standards, the level of academic quality is analyzed. Finally, the study discusses the instructional implications of geography academic quality from four aspects: curriculum objective design, curriculum content organization, teaching methods, and the teaching implementation process. These insights aim to assist geography teachers in guiding students to meet academic quality requirements in their daily teaching practice.

The content of geography textbooks should be developed in accordance with learning progressions. Based on the theory of learning progressions, this study analyzes the content structure of the view of human-environment Relationship in the People’s Education Press in senior high school geography textbooks. Starting from the three knowledge dimensions— “space”“human beings”and“human-environment interaction”—along with their contextual frameworks, a dual-track progression analysis framework is constructed. The textbook demonstrates clear and orderly progression in the presentation of spatial knowledge, following a knowledge-deepening path of“element patterns—processmechanisms—overall eff ects”; for human-related knowledge, it follows a knowledge-deepening path of“spatial distribution—spatial processes—spatial relationships,”yet shows insufficient emphasis on systematic thinking regarding spatial connections of human activities; concerning human-environment interaction, it follows a knowledge-deepening path of“human-environment element patterns—mechanisms of human-environment interaction—regional sustainable development,”but provides inadequate elaboration on these interaction mechanisms.

To address prominent problems in regional teacher training, such as insuffi cient intrinsic motivation, poor transfer from learning to application, inaccurate matching between supply and demand, and the lack of feedback mechanisms, this study takes Whitehead's organismic process philosophy as its philosophical foundation and integrates middle-range theories including Self-Determination Theory, Cognitive Flexibility Theory, and Goal-Setting Theory to innovatively construct a CODA teacher training model composed of educational sentiment, diversity, creativity, pertinence, eff ectiveness, and dynamic feedback. Taking over ten years of practice at the Shanghai Geography Teacher Training Base as the research site, this study comprehensively adopts textual analysis, interviews, questionnaire assessment (N=350), and case analysis to conduct an appropriateness test through multi-source corroboration. The results indicate that the four core characteristics of base training are highly isomorphic with the dimensions of CODA; diversity and pertinence perform relatively well, while the score for training eff ectiveness is relatively low; aff ective learning support, strategic creativity, and diversity of methods are signifi cantly positively correlated with training eff ectiveness; and trainee growth cases reveal the operational chains of each dimension. Accordingly, a CODA training implementation model is distilled, providing an operational and transferable practical reference for regional geography teacher training.

Hierarchical frameworks of big ideas provide an important basis for organizing unit-based geography instruction and supporting the development of students’geographical competencies. Constructing such frameworks, however, places substantial demands on teachers’ability to synthesize relevant literature and make discipline-informed judgments. Drawing on a discipline-informed human–AI co-development approach, this study developed an AI-based workbench for generating hierarchical frameworks of big ideas in geography. The workbench decomposes the task into fi ve sequential processing nodes and integrates AI generation with teacher judgment through material routing, node-based generation, teacher review, and feedback-driven revision. This design creates a human–AI workfl ow in which intermediate outputs can be retained, revised, and traced. The workbench was fi rst tested on the topic of Industrial Location Choice, with the human–AI revision process documented in detail. Nine experts then independently evaluated automatically generated frameworks for seven geography topics. The overall mean rating was signifi cantly higher than the prespecifi ed benchmark of 3, corresponding to“basically meets the requirements”(M = 3.71, p < .01), and 92.4% of all ratings met or exceeded that benchmark. Directed content analysis identifi ed four areas in which teacher intervention was most needed: the selection and placement of core concepts, terminological precision, alignment across hierarchical levels, and connections to teaching practice. The fi ndings suggest that the workbench can support teachers in constructing hierarchical frameworks of big ideas in geography, but its outputs still require discipline-informed teacher judgment.

Maps often present geographical boundaries through linear symbols. If teaching directly equates the symbolic form with the objective boundary, it is likely to place emphasis on memorizing boundary locations and the characteristics on both sides, while paying less attention to the analysis of boundary-delineation criteria, transition ranges, scale changes, and cross-boundary connections. Based on natural regionalization, scale thinking, and research on boundaries, this article analyzes the relationships among geographical dividing lines, transition zones, and geographical boundaries. It categorizes boundary representations in senior high school geography as abrupt boundary lines, threshold boundary lines, and transitional boundaries, and summarizes their criteria dependence, scale dependence, dynamic mobility, and the duality of regional division and connection. On this basis, it constructs a geographical-boundary cognition process of“boundary delineation, identification, interpretation, and application”and proposes teaching pathways including multi-indicator overlay, map zooming and profi le transformation, temporal map overlay, and multi-boundary overlay. These pathways promote the shift in boundary learning from memorizing dividing lines to understanding the generative logic, spatial forms, formation processes, and conditions of application of boundaries.

To address the absence of spatial thinking and the tendency for decision-making processes to become mere formalities in interdisciplinary teaching of junior high school geography, this paper constructs a framework for engineering decision-making learning in geography from the perspective of spatial constraints.By clarifying the transformation logic from spatial conditions through spatial evidence to spatial constraints,and by introducing a mechanism for distinguishing rigid constraints from flexible ones, this paper establishes a task chain of“evidence extraction—constraint modeling—scheme generation—comparative verifi cation—decision optimization.”Drawing on a case of park-type emergency shelter design, elaborates on the strategies for teaching implementation and the system of performance-based assessment.Leveraging spatial confl icts to drive the trade-off and iteration of design schemes,the framework helps guide students to make the leap from understanding space to intervening in space,thereby deepening the cultivation of core geographical key competences.

As science and technology education spearheads the reform of basic education, how to enable students to“think like scientists and practice like engineers”by integrating engineering thinking into geography classrooms has become an urgent issue to be addressed. This study explores the alignment mechanism between engineering thinking and geographical key competences, applying the first principles to continuously simplify complex matters, exploring the“roots”behind them, and taking this as the convergence point to provide a feasible medium for disciplinary integration. On the basis of the constructed integration pathway for engineering thinking in geography teaching, a fi ve-step teaching strategy is developed. The study establishes a paradigm shift of engineering thinking from“analogical thinking”to“essence-driven”thinking, and through case analysis, examines the practical diffi culties encountered as well as the interdisciplinary integration model. This study proposes a viable paradigm for advancing the transformation of basic education from a“knowledge-based”to a “competency-based”orientation.

Suzhou Creek is Shanghai’s mother river and an important classroom for eco-environmental governance and waterfront urban renewal. Based on national and Shanghai municipal fi rst-class courses, this study develops a fi eld practice course entitled“Walking Along Suzhou Creek.”The course uses the 20-kilometer walkway from Danba Road Wharf to the Waibaidu Bridge sluice at the Bund as a teaching pathway. Along the route, hydrology and water quality, industrial development, pollution control, and civilization practice are transformed into teaching questions and course resources. The course has been implemented in dozens of universities, secondary and primary schools, and social institutions in China and abroad. The results show that the course enhances students’ geography praxis, environmental responsibility, and sense of urban identity, and can provide a reference for geographical field practice teaching and ecological civilization education themed on urban rivers.