Powerful Geography Knowledge Development at the Upper Secondary School Level in Czechia

Considering students’ prior knowledge, everyday experience and future career aspirations when designing geography curriculum and making content- and pedagogy-related decisions promotes young people’s confidence, interests, and motivation to learn geography. Moreover, it increases the utility, value and relevance of school geography. The chapter addresses the need for more empirical studies on using students’ career aspirations in geography education in various national or regional settings to expand the understanding of the educational potential of the ‘Powerful Geography’ approach. In this case, it implements the approach in the Czech educational context, where the prevailing school geography curriculum is deeply rooted in the Future 1 curriculum, and the students’ career aspirations are often overlooked in the curriculum-making process. Firstly, the national and school curriculum contexts are described. Attention is then devoted to the career aspirations of upper secondary geography students and to the identification of the powerful knowledge vital for the two most preferred job areas (advertisement, marketing and market research, and construction, architecture and urban planning) through interviews with four professional geographers (two per each job area). Finally, a practical implementation of the approach in a geography lesson is presented and reflected upon, and the observed benefits and limitations of the approach are introduced.