Concern about the negative effects of human activities on the environment should not be viewed as a recent trend. Some historical examples include the laws that regulated access to natural resources or urban health in Ancient Rome (Ruiz-Pino, 2017), the sustainable exploitation of forests in the Middle Ages (Soriano, 2003) or the first conservationist legislation in the mid-19th century ¹ .

Environmental Education (EE) first appeared at the end of the 1960s in response to what became known as the Great Acceleration, which began in the previous decade and which constituted the fastest, most profound alteration of the Earth’s systems in all our history. It was characterized by exponential population growth, mass consumption, economic development and urban expansion. In the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972, EE was proposed as an essential action strategy to encourage people to participate in solving the environmental problems generated by societies (Ministerio de Medio Ambiente, 1999). 15 years later at the International Congress on Environmental Education and Training (organized jointly by UNESCO ² and UNEP ³ ) in Moscow in 1987, it was defined as “a permanent process in which individuals and the community become aware of their environment and acquire knowledge, values, competencies, the experience and the will capable of making them act, individually and collectively, to solve the current and future problems of the environment”. At this Congress it was agreed that EE should be present in both formal and non-formal education, in schools and in society in general. In terms of curriculum contents, rather than setting up EE as a separate subject, it was suggested that it should be embedded across the whole curriculum (Novo, 2009). In that same year, the World Commission on Environment and Development published Our Common Future (Brundtland Report), in which the concept of sustainable development was officially defined.

The Commission on Geographical Education of the International Geographical Union (IGU) was approved in 1952 and presented its First Charter on Geographical Education in 1992. Based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it identified geographical education as an ideal vehicle for proposing solutions to the big global problems, all of which had a spatial dimension ⁴ .

In the Charter, it states that “the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (Geneva, 1991) reported that environmental and development education at all levels and for all peoples is crucial in ensuring the sustainable development of the world” and that “geographical education contributes to this objective by ensuring that individuals become aware of the impact of their behaviour and of their societies, have access to accurate information and skills that enable them to make environmentally sound decisions and develop an environmental ethic that guides their actions” (IGU, 1992).

In December 2002, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2005-2014 as the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in order to try to reorient education towards sustainability, promoting and integrating the principles, values and practices of sustainable development in all aspects of education. UNESCO identifies ESD as the response to the urgent challenges our planet is facing, emphasizing that efforts should focus on specific building blocks. In relation to the current discussion, one of these blocks highlights the need to transform learning environments by applying innovative teaching and learning processes, with a focus on practice and problem-solving in real-world contexts. Furthermore, it recommends implementing an education system centered on climate change (UNESCO, 2021). According to UNESCO, ESD “provides the necessary knowledge, skills, values and power to act to overcome the interrelated world challenges which we must face, such as climate change, the loss of biodiversity, non-sustainable use of resources and inequalities”. The permanent ongoing changes in the relationship between societies and the planet mean that ESD must be a lifelong learning process. Its objective is to create citizens who act responsibly in terms of their everyday lifestyles, so as to be able to revert the trend towards the deterioration of the global system in both its environmental and social dimensions. In response to the United Nations Decade for Education for Sustainable Development in Lucerne in 2007, the IGU Commission on Geographic Education issued the Declaration on Geographical Education for Sustainable Development. It broadened the previous Declaration of 1992 and emphasized three fundamental aspects: a) the contribution of geography to ESD, b) the criteria for developing geographical curricula for ESD and c) the importance of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in ESD in geography.

As regards the first question, it is important to highlight the proposal set out in the Declaration regarding the integration of the sustainable development paradigm into geography teaching at all levels and from the perspective of its three dimensions: nature, economy and society (IGU, 2007). It lists a set of ideal geographical competencies to enhance sustainable development - knowledge, skills, attitudes and values – together with other interdisciplinary competencies related above all with the analysis of the causes and effects of global problems. In the next IGU Commission Charter on Geographical Education, geography was defined as “the study of Earth and its natural and human environments.” (IGU, 2016). It is therefore an ideal science for understanding the functioning of the world system, in terms of both its physical base and the interrelations and interactions of societies with the environment. It can also equip learners with the ability to analyse processes at different scales (local, regional and global), an essential skill to enable them to think critically about the repercussions of human actions.

As regards the curricular development of ESD, the idiosyncrasy of geography as a social science, an Earth science and a science of landscape makes it an ideal discipline for hosting ESD. This does not mean that geography should abandon its wide diversity of fields of study or that ESD should be completely confined within the geographic sphere. In fact, a “sustainabilization” of all areas of knowledge must be carried out (Granados, 2011). Concerning geographical education and its objectives, we believe that ESD can and must be an end in itself, helping us achieve a sustainable way of thinking and acting that can be arrived at through geographical thought.

Finally, the third fundamental aspect of the Lucerne declaration referred to “the importance of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in ESD in Geography”. It also stated that “its specific potential for ESD in Geography lies in the interactivity of the tool, in its suitability for self- directed and cooperative learning arrangements and in its enormous richness in terms of attractive up-to-date contents and learning opportunities for topics concerning ESD” (IGU, 2007). This is how it viewed the opportunities that digital technologies offer teachers to diversify the methods they use for teaching and learning the geographical contents related with ESD. The access that GITs offer to a large amount of updated, verified information and their capacity to organize, process, interpret and relate it makes them ideal tools for carrying out research projects in the classroom, both during the analysis process and later when presenting the results. In the case in question, they help develop the students’ capacity for empathy, as from the classroom they can discover the real situations facing people affected by social or environmental problems, such as the consequences of natural disasters, and the conditions in which people in different societies around the world live. ICTs also make it possible to observe the evolution of processes over time and space and in this way assess their scale, repercussions and future tendencies, so enabling the analysis of phenomena such as the expansion of our cities, deforestation or desertification. For all these reasons, they offer specific added value to geographical education and ESD, boosting motivation thanks to their innovative environment, which facilitates independent, meaningful learning in that they constitute an experience in themselves. In this way, these technologies can contribute, from the perspective of education and the different sciences, to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) on the sustainable development Agenda 2030.

In Spain, since the enactment of the General Organization of the Education System Act (LOGSE) in 1992, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has been included in the curricular content across various educational levels, from Primary Education to Upper Secondary Education, generally associated with Geography. Subsequent educational laws have progressively increased the conceptual, procedural, and attitudinal content related to ESD. In the field of higher education, the same year saw the emergence of the first initiatives for curricular ‘greening’ and promoting research on sustainable development, driven by the World Conference on Environment in Rio de Janeiro (Benayas, Marcen, Alba & Gutiérrez, 2017).

In Spain, the current Royal Decree 243/2022 (Real Decreto 243/2022), which established the minimum teaching contents for the Bachillerato (equivalent to Baccalaureate, or Key Stages 5 / Years 12–13 in the UK, and Grades 11–12 in other Anglophone countries), stated that geographic competencies are based on research-based learning of the natural and human phenomena that take place in the territory, in this way emphasizing how important the practical dimension is in the process of teaching and learning geography. Ecosocial processes are typically very complex, which means that to study and fully understand them we need applications that enable different forms of georeferenced information at any scale to be consulted and compared. It must also be possible to present research results with georeferenced data. Nowadays, in order to understand the functioning of the Earth’s system and of the anthroposphere, we require tools with which to break down and relate the set of elements, processes and factors involved in all geographic events. This is why a holistic approach is so essential in geographic education, given that terrestrial subsystems interact with each other to reach a point of equilibrium in the global system (Kerski, 2008). The rapid advance of technology, and as a result of the methods of production and distribution, brings with it the need for a permanent updating of spatial data and of the instruments used to analyse it in both professional and educational walks of life. Faced with this scenario, Geographic Information Technologies (GIT) offer an ideal tool to help understand the context of our actions and their impact on natural systems. Unlike conventional cartography, through which one could find out where, GITs also make it easier to discover why. They enable us to interpret the territory from different scales and taking its different components into account with the support of spatial databases that are continually being expanded and updated. They also offer teachers and students the chance to locate, identify and analyse the processes that negatively affect the territory at a local, regional or global scale, so making it easier for them to understand the dynamics of problems that can originate and have consequences at each of these different scales (Crespo & Rodríguez, 2020).

The incorporation of GITs into the formal contents of social science subjects is considerably more recent than the first research studies on their didactic potential at all educational levels, published in the last decades of the past century (Bosque, 1999; Buzai, 2001). In fact, in Spain, until the approval of the most recent Education Law (LOMLOE, in 2020) and the coming into force of the corresponding decrees in 2022, there had been no explicit references to the use of GITs. In the latest decrees governing the organization of Primary Education and the minimum teaching contents (Real Decreto 157/2022), GITs are included in the second and third cycles (from 7-8 to 11-12 years old), as part of the basic areas of knowledge in the subject area known as Knowledge of the Natural, Social and Cultural Environment. Within the block of contents on Societies and Territories, there is a section on the Challenges facing the world today. In Compulsory Secondary Education, these issues are covered in the syllabus for the combined subject of Geography and History in the same basic areas of knowledge as in Primary Education (Real Decreto 217/2022). Lastly, in Bachillerato (Baccalaureate or K-11 and K-12), geography is an optional subject, in which GITs are considered a basic resource for conducting individual and team-based investigations which enable an interdisciplinary approach to the territory to be implemented. They can also be used as a tool for diagnosis and for efficiently presenting and communicating conclusions and proposals aimed at improving the social environment of the students from the perspective of their critical analysis, so encouraging them to take part in civic activities and help them mature” (Real Decreto 243/2022).

Within GITs, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have an excellent capacity to relate different layers of information, and can therefore act as a bridge between geospatial technology and teaching practices (Buzo-Sánchez, 2021). Of these, the most widely used by teachers are the Web GIS and cartographic visualizers. This is because they adapt well to school settings (most of them are free and do not require specific software or hardware) and are easy to use (De Miguel, 2006; Crespo & Rodríguez, 2019; Crespo, 2019; De Lázaro, Puertas-Aguilar, Álvarez-Otero, 2022). Their application in the teaching of geography and other subjects contributes to the development of both digital skills (Palomero-Ylardia, Mellado-Moreno & Bernal-Bravo, 2025) and critical spatial thought (Wisang Elang Fajar Nisnala, Purwanto, & Syamsul Bachri, 2025). Buzo-Sánchez (2021) made clear that the integration of these tools in the teaching and learning process is ideal for implementing a methodology based on smart learning, in that it enhances independent, student-centred learning that is adapted to their needs. These systems contextualize knowledge and motivate learners by using a varied range of resources. They also develop their reasoning capacity (Buzo-Sánchez; Mínguez & De Lázaro, 2023).

A few years ago, a new communication product appeared based on the interaction between narrative and cartography. In this product, known as Story maps, maps are an integral part of the narration or explanation of a particular topic. In a strict sense, they could be defined as narrations in which information is supplied in such a way that the receiver receives it in an order that enables them to follow the plot of the story they are being told and understand its outcome or ending (Patton, 2014). Within the field of GIT, story maps are photographic or cartographic itineraries that enable the contents of “stories” to be visualized in the desired order so to make geographic information more accessible. Some digital cartography platforms offer tools for designing, creating and sharing resources of this kind. These include ArcGIS StoryMaps by ESRI, which has over 3 million examples. Their application in the classroom occurred almost immediately after they became available online, and they were used by teachers both as a motivating tool for the presentation of topics (González & Zápico, 2016; Pons, Armendáriz & Pintado, 2018), and as a platform for collaborative projects created together with or by the students (De Lázaro & Morales, 2021). Within the specific field of education for sustainability, they have been shown to be useful for illustrating and explaining the evolution of phenomena such as global warming, desertification and water shortages, so enabling teachers, among other things, to visually compare the situation in different places or at different times. In terms of methodology, Velilla, Guallart & Laguna (2021) emphasize their value as educational resources for studying sustainability-related concepts, for example for the implementation of project-based learning proposals (in which story maps can act as very efficient tools for accessing information). They can also be used for collaborative learning in the sense that as they involve a “journey”, they can create a scenario that is equivalent to or can replace fieldwork and offers various different advantages.

The use of story maps cannot replace the firsthand experience offered by fieldwork or the information provided by teaching materials or textbooks, but it can provide a means of visualizing the information, halfway between augmented reality and interactive learning that allows students to grasp environmental issues successfully (Cope, Mikhailova, Post, Schlautman & Carbajales-Dale, 2018). In this sense, story maps offer an innovative visual means of connecting with students and arousing their interest in a particular topic. This is because they are presented in a similar communication format to those that young people are accustomed to using outside the classroom (Egiebor & Foster, 2019). Students can use them in very different ways, for example “as a presentation tool, a tool for practicing web mapping and data skills, as a way to acquire new experience and skills in an engaging way” (Vojteková, Žoncová, Tirpáková & Vojtek, 2022). For their part teachers can use them among other things, as “an evaluation tool, a tool to attract students’ attention or as a didactic resource for teaching GITs in primary and secondary schools”, as required by the curriculum, in a simple accessible way. As Vojteková et al. (ib.) made clear, “there is a critical need for digital narration as a way of teaching and learning in education in the 21st century”. Story maps can respond to this recent growing need, in that they are didactic tools that adapt well to current communication strategies, enhance interactivity between students and boost their interest in the contents and their motivation. Within the field of ESD, they are of enormous interest as a work tool which will be reinforced in coming years with the development of GeoAI tools. Their multiple applications as a didactic resource, as we will later go on to see, demonstrate their great potential for teachers. In spite of this, however, they are only used very rarely in the teaching of geography and other associated sciences. This is why it is considered fundamental to promote the use and diffusion of story maps in initial teacher training programmes, so reinforcing the increasingly evident role that GITs can play in the digital literacy of teachers and students within the current framework, something that is generally considered to be essential for effective ESD.

Given that GITs have only recently been incorporated into geography teaching in general and ESD in particular, very little research has been done on them (Pons, 2023). This paper offers a review of the publications which share experiences and proposals regarding their application in the field of geographic education with an ecosocial approach. To this end, we analyse the methodological approach applied in each paper, the audience it is aimed at, and the ESD-related topics it addresses. With this in mind, the following objectives were established for this review:

In order to achieve these objectives, the following research questions were identified:

On the basis of the innovative experiences and the design and objectives of the articles analysed, we identified four strategies for the didactic use of story maps in the field of education for sustainable development. Taking as a reference the most visualized maps in the ArcGIS Story maps community (https://doc.arcgis.com/en/arcgis-storymaps/gallery/) and other widely disseminated story maps –a list of the selected story maps referenced in the selected studies can be consulted in the last row of Appendix A–, we will now illustrate their main uses and approaches today, considering their users – students or teachers – and the ways in which they are used, which allows for the differentiation of four main usage types:

The articles analysed highlight the value of story maps at different levels and spheres of education for teaching and learning about sustainability-related issues (Fig. 1). Although they are used above all in further education, their use in secondary schools is becoming increasingly common, as evidenced by the growing number of publications related to this educational stage in the past three years (see references in articles in Appendix A). They are also of increasing interest in the dissemination and communication of science to society in general.

As regards the sustainability-related topics that can be explored with story maps, the evidence shows that they are very versatile tools. In the research studies used as a reference (see Appendix A), story maps are presented as ideal resources for in-depth analysis of environmental problems and natural risks of different kinds (Fig. 2), and can be used to illustrate problems as diverse as climate change (Schnitzler, 2020; Morales & De Lázaro, 2021; De Lázaro & Morales, 2023), rural depopulation (Velilla, Guallart & Marín- Yaseli, 2021) or the sustainability of our cities (Mateo & Rodríguez, 2023).

In addition to these topics, during our review of the story maps held in reference repositories, we became aware of the possibilities they offer for the study, from a geographical perspective, of other aspects relating to sustainability such as sustainable mobility, green urban infrastructure or sustainable architecture ⁷ .

Considering the variety of didactic proposals based on story maps reviewed and the sample of selected paradigmatic publications, it can be concluded that there has been a recent increase in the publication of articles presenting proposals for the use of story maps in geographic education aimed at ESD. This increase is in line with the increasing production of these resources in other fields (Jacobson, 2022). The diversity of ESD-related contents in the publications we analysed confirms that story maps are a versatile tool for presenting different geographic contents related with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), so highlighting with the works reviewed that there are some fields that remain almost unexplored, such as education for Peace (SDG 16) or for Sustainable Industrialization (SDG 9).

The research studies and cases analysed here highlight that the promotion and didactic use of story maps for ESD necessarily involves the “sustainabilization” of all curriculum contents. This means that rather than adding new specific contents about sustainability or expanding existing ones, it should be allowed to permeate all aspects of the curriculum. With this in mind, contents relating to sustainability must be made more accessible so as to encourage the widespread creation of story maps and promote their use in the classroom. This could lead to them acquiring a more important future role both in classrooms at all educational levels and in the training of teaching staff. This could have a beneficial reciprocal effect in that the extended use of story maps could make a significant contribution to enhancing the sustainabilization of the curriculum, as made clear by De Lázaro-Torres, Puertas-Aguilar & Álvarez-Otero (2023), who presented some specific examples of its potential as a teaching resource for this purpose (https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/b97a0b3c5b81409aab01a055108faf5a).

It is also possible that the methodological transformation in which geography as a discipline is currently immersed, with the boom in GITs and the progressive introduction of sustainable development in the didactics of this subject at all educational levels, will bring new ways of promoting sustainability from a geographical perspective using the new tools that have emerged and presumably will continue to emerge in the future. In this context, story maps as we know them today are a tool or resource that is undergoing development, which will later be strengthened and optimized with the appearance and development of other new tools such as Geographic Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI) or Augmented Geographic Reality (Rodríguez, Vilar & García, 2023).

In spite of the possibilities offered by GITs in general and story maps in particular within the framework of ESD, it is necessary for their everyday use to become established in the collective imaginary of the teaching staff, so as to promote and generalize their use. In our case in Spain, this will not be easy. Academic Geography is confined to very specific university degrees, and in compulsory education—where Geography enjoys a significant role—this subject is taught by teachers who graduated in Primary Education or History —rarely in Geography— (Marco, 2002; Crespo, Sebastiá & Souto, 2021; López, 2022), who are unlikely to have used GITs during their own education or training process. It is therefore important to reflect on what measures and actions could be taken to enhance the use of story maps in ESD:

The limitations of this research are the result, first and foremost, of the databases we consulted and of the fact that we made the search in Spanish and English. This means that publications in other languages were excluded from our selection, as were those mentioned in other databases that we did not consult. The second limitation arises from the particular keywords and combinations we used in our search. It is possible that some articles with some relation with our subject were published using other concepts and/or keywords. Thirdly, the very limited number of review papers on the subject under investigation prevented us from comparing our results as extensively as we would have wished. However, our findings largely align with those presented in a similar recent study (Pons, 2023), particularly regarding the growing interest in story maps related to environmental issues and the case study approach to working with the tool. The last limitation is the relatively small size of the selected sample group, which could lead to distorted results in relation to the intended audience and the ESD topics being studied, such that in the near future different tendencies might be detected to those initially identified. Despite these limitations, it is important to stress that the selected sample group successfully fulfilled our objective of identifying and defining the recent tendencies in relation to the didactic use of story maps in ESD, as it enabled us to identify the most common uses and most significant tendencies.