School atlas mapping for education for sustainable development: topic “Global water resources”

The goal of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is to help students develop knowledge, skills and values that will enable them to make local and global decisions to improve the quality of life without posing an environmental threat to the future of the planet. At present, there is an abundance of public statistical information related to sustainable development. Many digital platforms and open-source software offer tools to create your own maps and diagrams. However, in order to use it for educational purposes, it is necessary to provide at least basic training on statistical data systematization and visualization for high school students. In addition, it is important to develop manuals and guidelines to help students identify the most suitable data for their tasks. The inclusion of new plots and topics in the content of the traditional educational geographic atlas is an optimal and one of the most promising approaches to integrating the ideas of sustainable development into school education. The main result of the conducted research—is the inclusion in the content of the school atlas “Economic and Social Geography of the World. Natural resources. Population. Economics” of new cartographic plots on the topic of conservation of the global water resources. The following World maps have been developed—“Water resources availability” (1:160,000,000); “Water scarcity” (1:250,000,000); “Surface water resources” (1:160,000,000); “Pollution of the hydrosphere” (1:160,000,000); “Global marine mineral and energy resources” (1:160,000,000); “Global marine biological resources” (1:160,000,000). School atlas maps, created from the standpoint of sustainable development, help to develop understanding of global issues in students and to build their motivation for finding new solutions.