Beltrami on Expedition: Exploring Minnesota in 1823 in search of the Headwaters of the Mississippi River

Conference Room: Lewis

Summary Throughout the 1800's, as the United States expanded north and west after the Louisiana Purchase, there were numerous explorers who came to northern Minnesota searching for the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Though the mouth was well known and much of the lower and middle river well charted, it proved to be difficult to […]

Globalizing the ‘Yellow Peril’ and Anti-Asian Racism with Human Rights Education

Conference Room: Iowa

Summary This presentation examines how human rights education (HRE) can help teachers frame and globalize themes related to anti-Asian racism. This session will demonstrate how human rights concepts can help teachers identify stereotypes and discrimination faced by Asian people across the globe, and promote citizenship that interrupts these forces. Following a brief overview of HRE […]

Beyond the Hype: Critical AI Literacy for Geography and Social Studies Educators

Conference Room: Clark

Summary The rapid emergence of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has sparked both optimism and unease within education. For geography and the broader social sciences, GenAI tools such as ChatGPT promise efficiencies in curriculum design, data analysis, and feedback, yet they also produce errors, false citations, and cultural oversimplifications. The use of large language models poses […]

Field Mapping: Engaging Students by Collecting Data using Street Surveys

Conference Room: Flannigan

Summary Field data collection remains one of the most important ways to collect geographic information. An increasing number of commercial applications rely on OpenStreetMap so adding pedestrian-level detail to OpenStreetMap yields broad-based benefits for everyone in a community. Field mapping is a fun way to learn about the landscapes as well as how to collect […]

Mapping Majdanek: A Topographic Inquiry into the Bystanders of the Holocaust

Conference Room: Winnebago

Summary Using geo-literacy skills, students can engage in learning about the Holocaust in new ways. How we map the Holocaust can both answer and raise important questions. Knowles (2024) identified five challenges of mapping the Holocaust. Among the challenges, Holocaust maps tend to represent the actions of the perpetrators, perpetuate outdated narratives of the Holocaust, […]

Inquiry into Persecution, Scale, and Spatial Change with Holocaust Survivor Testimonies

Conference Room: Lewis

Summary This presentation is based on our chapter in Teaching Holocaust Geographies in Middle and Secondary Schools, which offers a unique perspective on using geography to understand how this genocide altered people, locations, and landscapes. Using the Geo-Inquiry Progress, students are empowered to use geographic tools to explore Holocaust survivor testimonies to analyze how policies […]

Spiraling to help students interpret random internet “facts”

Conference Room: Clark

Summary "Students can find facts on the internet; we should focus on teaching skills." This observation is common, but it is also naive and dangerous. If students lack a framework of accurate and well-connected facts for comparison, it is hard to teach a skill of evaluating new facts for accuracy or relevance. The key word […]

Publishing in NCGE Journals

Conference Room: Nebraska

Summary The editors of the two NCGE journals – the Geography Teacher and the Journal of Geography – invite you to learn about the publication process for the journals and how you can become a successful author. Take half an hour to learn about preparing and submitting manuscripts, completing the publishing process as an author, […]

Exploring Climate Change Through Play

Conference Room: Iowa

Summary In this session, participants will explore one of the consequences of climate change, that of sea-level rise. Attendees will participate in a lesson which uses blocks to model the topography of various coastlines, and then document the effects of various levels of sea-level rise around the world. Participants will brainstorm possible solutions coastal communities […]

Chicago Today: Effects of Redlining and Urban Renewal

Conference Room: Flannigan

Summary Cities change their structural space and are a part of globalization, but how does this affect residents across a city? This two-part session discusses the challenges of urban growth, both in the past and present by centering on our third largest city, Chicago. The first part focuses on the effects of redlining in Chicago […]

Teaching About Taiwan: Crossroads of Culture and Empire

Conference Room: Winnebago

Summary This session will provide participants with practical, engaging activities about Taiwan for the geography classroom. Taiwan is an island that mixes unique indigenous cultures with Chinese, Japanese, European, and American influences; it provides an interesting and topical area of study for human and physical geography students. The participants on this panel spent two weeks […]

Enhancing Capabilities Through Racially Literate Curriculum Making

Conference Room: Lewis

Summary Through a Spencer-funded research project, 14 social studies teachers from the Midwest and 3 teacher educators collaborated with the goal of enhancing teachers’ racially literate curriculum making in the social studies. The eighteen-month endeavor draws from the international GeoCapabilities project and the recent book “Race, Racism and the Geography Curriculum” (Morgan & Lambert, 2023). […]