Green Geography Education: Green Skills and Sustainable Development in School Geography

Abstract

The transition to sustainable development requires school education to develop not only environmental knowledge, but also green skills that enable learners to understand, evaluate and improve the sustainability of real places. This article examines Green Geography Education as an integrated approach for connecting green skills with sustainable development in school geography. The study draws on international policy frameworks, including UNESCO's Greening Curriculum Guidance, Green School Quality Standard, the GreenComp competence framework, ILO green skills policy, and international geography education documents. It also synthesizes peer-reviewed research on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), whole-school approaches, school geography curricula and fieldwork-based sustainability learning. The article argues that geography is a strategic subject for green skills development because it combines spatial thinking, systems thinking, field inquiry, GIS, environmental analysis and local action. A conceptual Green Geography Education model is proposed, linking curriculum topics, SDG-related issues, green skills, inquiry tasks and assessment evidence. The findings suggest that school geography can move beyond fragmented environmental topics when sustainable development is operationalized through place-based investigation, map-based reasoning, school eco-audits and community-oriented projects. The proposed framework offers a structured pathway for teachers and schools to transform geography lessons into measurable sustainability learning outcomes and to prepare students for responsible participation in a green and climate-resilient future.