PRESENTERS: GALE EKISS & HEATHER MOLL | STRAND: ELEMENTARY

With portability in mind, the Arizona Geographic Alliance created a set of K-7 activity booklets to engage students in geography activities in all kinds of settings. Available in hard copy and online, these booklets emphasize learning about our environment, how geography interplays with history, spatial thinking, and geographic vocabulary. These 16-page booklets contain fun activities designed for students to complete with little or no adult instruction. Answer keys are provided in the booklets.

PRESENTER: PHIL GERSMEHL | STRAND: ELEMENTARY

This session is about the autumn part of a yearlong K-2 geography package. The core of the autumn module is an engaging multi-week treasure-map project, complete with forms and rubrics for a number of diagnostic, scaffold, and ELA/math spinoff mini-activities. Supporting materials include reading guides, curriculum planning docs, activity forms, and a Primary Classroom Geography Kit. Session participants will get a brief review of neuroscience research about spatial reasoning and math education, see examples of student work, discuss ways of adapting the materials to fit local conditions, and get access to a K-8 curriculum website

PRESENTER: PHIL GERSMEHL | STRAND: ELEMENTARY

This session is about the autumn part of a yearlong K-2 geography package. The core of the autumn module is an engaging multi-week treasure-map project, complete with forms and rubrics for a number of diagnostic, scaffold, and ELA/math spinoff mini-activities. Supporting materials include reading guides, curriculum planning docs, activity forms, and a Primary Classroom Geography Kit. Session participants will get a brief review of neuroscience research about spatial reasoning and math education, see examples of student work, discuss ways of adapting the materials to fit local conditions, and get access to a K-8 curriculum website

Engage your students in the amazing adventure of learning about the geography of the United States through Mystery Skypes as they collaborate with students in different states across the nation!

PRESENTER: BECCA CASTLEBERRY & J. SCOTT GREENE | STRAND: MIDDLE SCHOOL

The Oklahoma Alliance for Geographic Education (OKAGE) conducted four separate Geo-Inquiry projects during the Spring 2021 semester. In order to conduct these projects, OKAGE partnered with four schools in the “Four Corners” of Oklahoma. OKAGE worked with teachers in Broken Bow High School (Southeast), Cache High School (Southwest), Hooker Junior High (Northwest), and Owasso Seventh Grade Center (Northeast) to develop four unique, student-led field experiences. Students at Broken Bow High School conducted their project on forest health and wildfire risk in the Hochatown Wildland Urban Interface; Cache High School students examined the geology and geography of the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge as these topics relate to Environmental Conservation; students at Hooker Junior High investigated how COVID-19 impacted the park in terms of visitation, land use, and wildlife; and Owasso Seventh Grade Center Students researched impacts of the Tulsa Race Massacre upon the demographics of their community.

PRESENTER: COLIN TEAGUE & JIM JACOB | STRAND: MIDDLE SCHOOL

Imagine if you could travel to the icy-cold, remote Arctic with your students in tow. With the remote learning skills you have developed this past school year, you can do it! In this session, you will connect with a real-life polar explorer and talk to them about how a virtual exchange connection with them can enhance your instruction. In this conversation, attendees will understand how asynchronous (articles and on-demand media) and synchronous (video conferencing) opportunities can inspire and enhance your practice. Participants will also learn how to bring other exciting explorers and STEM professionals into the classroom to enhance curriculum and explore STEM careers. By the end of this session, you will be inspired to use your virtual learning expertise to take your classroom on global education journeys to some of Earth’s most remote and exciting places! Adventure awaits!

PRESENTER: KATHRYN BUCKLEY | STRAND: MIDDLE SCHOOL

This presentation reviews a series of interdisciplinary exercises in which students sequence or “map” genetic mutations of the COVID virus to understand how variants evolve. They then use this information to track the global path of COVID variants on digital maps to identify how genetic and geographical information are used by scientists to create public health policy.

Students then compare the response to COVID in both Iceland and the United States to recognize how scientific information and cultural norms intersect to create public policy and affect public health outcomes. The information in this lesson is enhanced by personal experiences and interviews from NCGE’s Geocamp Iceland.

This session is intended to be part of the NCGE Geocamp Iceland’s Session “Iceland Experiences”. However, it can also be presented as a stand-alone session in which teachers go through the lessons as students themselves.

There is a critical need to address climate challenges rapidly and on a large scale. The Sustainability Community Engagement Project engages students in THE most important challenge of their lifetime- climate change and its myriad disruptions. No matter the reason for the lack of American engagement, what is most needed now as outlined in IPCC (2018) is “urgent, transformational change” in our social-ecological systems. The Resilience Project is an experiential project in community engagement that is expansive and frequently transformational for students researching, conducting sustainability, and creating resilience. Over the last decade, an Environmental Sustainability course employed project-based learning to engage students in community sustainability. To date, the course has produced over 700 community sustainability projects, across the Kansas City Metropolitan region and beyond. The course has since been shared with Dual Credit and other high school classes and an art institute foundation class

A neglected chapter in history of geographic education–the civil rights organization SNCC and the Freedom Schools it helped establish in 1964. Functioning as an alternative to Mississippi’s racially segregated and discriminatory public schools, Freedom Schools not only addressed the basic education needs of Black children but also created a curriculum to build their confidence and skills to question and mobilize against the historical and geographical forces behind White Supremacy. Long predating social justice teaching in mainstream classrooms, Freedom Schools produced a critical regional pedagogy to help students identify the regional conditions of their oppression in the South, compare life in Mississippi to other regions, and counter-map structures and scales of power behind racism.

Service Learning and Geospatial technology can empower your students and empower your lessons. This session will demonstrate examples of empowering you and your students to learn and serve at the same. We also explore how students will engage in humanitarian efforts from the comfort of your classroom. Teachers will also hear how they can possibly be financially supported in these efforts to engage their students in service learning.

Indigenous place names possess traditional knowledge, world view, and information related to spirituality and culture. Non-natives can better understand and respect Indigenous cultures by studying what the names reveal. Handouts.

Cartooning in a Geography Classroom uses a PowerPoint presentation to explore the use of newspaper cartoons in grade 7-12 classrooms. After examining the types of newspaper cartooning, participants receive strategies to read and analyze political cartoons. All material relates to the concepts of geographic thinking with suggestions to create computer generated cartoons. Links to cartoon resources are provided.

Oral storytelling traditions are as old as humans themselves. Our earliest ancestors were telling stories to entertain, inform, and pass down important knowledge. Today, audio stories still serve that same purpose, and with the help of accessible podcasting platforms, a good story has the power to compel listeners around the world to action on pressing global issues. We live in the most connected age in human history, and yet the worldview of our students can be so narrow. When students have the opportunity to produce their own audio stories that center on their ways of knowing and being in the world, they gain intellectual curiosity and confidence.  

By the end of this session, attendees will 1) identify the key elements of compelling audio storytelling, 2) examine human-environment issues through a critical “glocal” lens, and 3) become familiar with a free, cloud-based audio production called Anchor.

Explore how the COVID-19 and Health Equity unit, How can we slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus to protect our communities? supports geography, social studies, and science learning goals as well as the social emotional wellness of students. In this session, you will engage in the anchor lesson using “learner hat”. From a student’s perspective, you will explore how the COVID-19 virus has impacted different communities in the United States. You will analyze data on COVID-19 case counts, COVID-19 deaths, and census data to identify spatial and temporal patterns in the communities. From patterns in the data, you will generate initial explanations about why these patterns exist and develop questions to further investigate the problem. You will then transition to “educator hat” to view the unit storyline, the geography, social studies, and science learning goals at play in the unit, and the social and emotional learning (SEL) supports integrated throughout the unit.

Using GIS and doing fieldwork in my classroom always felt like it was just out of reach. It was intimidating and overwhelming. This activity attempts to break past that and give teachers a model to follow where students map and analyze geospatial data to solve a problem by answering the question: where is the nearest vending machine? We will use the geo-inquiry process from National Geographic and various tools from ESRI.

In this webinar, we will discuss a culminating project for AP Human Geography students  which motivated students to answer essential questions of inquiry:
-Why do we value some spaces more than others?
-How do humans curate and show value in a space?
-What are the implications of the human imprint?
-What happens when we stop placing value on our spaces?

The investigation was an independent study in which students chose from eight different pathways of exploration surrounding the concept of sense of place. Employing Google tools we learned to use over the course of the school year, students researched and presented their findings of sense of place, paying special care to connect their observations to Yi-Fu Tuan, the leading academic on the topic of geographical sense of place. Depending on the student’s choice of inquiry, students were assigned an academic journal article written by Yi-Fu Tuan. After annotations, students are encouraged to contemplate the philosophical thoughts of Yi-Fu Tuan during their investigation, and ultimately choose one quote from the professor that best reflects their findings, to include in their final project’s commentary.

Do you want to support kids in working with maps, graphs, and community and citizen science data sets? BSCS Science Learning has developed Invitations to Inquiry with FieldScope, free instructional activities designed to connect students with environmental data and build their confidence in working with the data to answer questions about the world. This session will focus on using an inquiry model to support students as they map and graph real-world data. Bring your computer and be ready to explore data in FieldScope.

This webinar will present the latest findings from current large-scale empirical research using data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Geography. Session content will feature forthcoming articles in a special issue of the Journal of Geography.

The first 20 minutes will be devoted to the results of a descriptive analysis of geography achievement in the United States, 1994-2018.

The next 20 minutes will focus on research by doctoral students who used the NAEP Data Explorer to address questions about student achievement and classroom-level “opportunity to learn” variables (e.g., curriculum content and exposure, teacher training, teaching experience, instructional modalities, and processes). Attendees will receive copies of NAEP data reports for small-group discussion and reflection.

This presentation is designed to introduce participants to the world of insects and how they are changing the global food scene. It is designed to incorporate science and social studies. Participants will learn background information about the environmental impact of trying to feed the world’s population. Through a variety of resources, they will learn about human-environment interaction. Content will focus on global communities, insects as a food source, and climate change. Teaching methods will be both teacher and student-centered. Kinesthetic learning will be used through a National Geographic mapping activity to teach students about different places around the world and the insects that they eat. Direct instruction will be given for background information about insects, farming, and environmental impact. Materials will be provided for background reading.

In order to increase geography awareness, there has to be training of geographic perspective, content knowledge as well as exposure to ever-advancing geo-technology skills. With a blending of National Geographic Education resources and ESRI geotechnologies, Heidi Ragsdale and STEM is My Future, established the Geo Maker Institute (GMI), which provides training for K-12 teachers and students, focusing on Mapping and Making. The Problem-Based Learning course focuses on this Driving Question: “How can rural educators increase our regional citizens’ Geo-Awareness through GIS and maker training?” This NCGE presentation will include the structure of the GMI training, resources for implementation, ideas to share within formal and informal learning settings, and ideas for establishing personalized learning networks (PLN) for continued collaboration.

For many years, we’ve discussed the impact of GIS on student learning largely through anecdotes and examples. During this time, the promise of the technology has been real, but elusive, especially in the absence of quantitative studies of its impact. For the past few years, a team of researchers from James Madison, Northwestern, Georgetown and American Universities have been conducting an in-depth study to explore the behavioral and cognitive impact of the use of GIS by high school students. In this session, we will describe the setting for this study (the Geospatial Semester in Virginia), the study’s format and the results, including both behavioral and cognitive measures (explored using fMRI). We’ll share the growing base of evidence for the impact of GIS in learning and make the case for its impact in classrooms

With the adoption of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, countries laid out a vision for supporting the well-being of all the world’s people, as well as the environment. In this hands-on/minds-on session, the presenter will engage participants in a classroom activity that introduces students to the SDGs – the aims, importance, and status – as well as the interconnections among the different goals. She will also facilitate activities for the classroom that take a deeper look into global inequities as they relate to energy use and climate resilience, and more localized inequities related to waste disposal. Participants will also engage in an activity that examines “needs vs. wants” and how this differs among communities here and around the globe.

In this workshop, Led by G.B. Rodriquez, JD Ph.D., teachers will explore and engage in the self-naming practices and pedagogies of StyleWriting (Rossomando 1996), the element of Hip Hop culture and global movement also known as aerosol or spray can art, urban hieroglyphics, street/urban calligraphy, or simply Writing, as it is called by its practitioners. Tied to the 60-minute talk titled “Burnin’ Blackbooks, Blazing Name Styles,” here participants will gain hands-on experience with the transformative “True School” Hip Hop cultural model for teaching and learning developed in my innovative doctoral research and deepened across the pedagogies and practices of a 9th-grade Geography classroom.

A student co-presenter will begin the session with a performative presentation and co-facilitate the practice-based portion

Delve into the basics of how to introduce inquiry-based projects into an AP Human Geography course through general tips and an exemplar project. There is a common misconception that inquiry-based projects are incompatible or difficult to implement in AP courses because of limited time. Learn how to structure your course to incorporate projects throughout that year that teach both skills and content relevant to the curriculum. Attendees will end by walking through an example project that has students produce their own Human Development Index (HDI) to study a unit on industrial and economic development. Receive digital copies of project directions and a customizable spreadsheet that students use to create and calculate their HDI rankings.

In this session, we will explore geographic scale as a foundation that explains patterns and processes. Participants will analyze maps and images at the four common geographic scales to gain a clear understanding of scale analysis as a targeted skill within the APHG course.

Teaching students how to read and understand quantitative and qualitative data is a skill that must be repeated constantly and used throughout the year. Four veteran teachers of AP Human Geography share their strategies on how to get students to efficiently teach using data and provide students with constant formative feedback while also preparing students for success on the AP Human Geography Exam. Participants will learn about Verbal FRQing and how to use NCGE’s bell ringers in your classroom as strategies to help students grow.

Perhaps you’ve noticed GIS and digital mapping technologies gradually making their way into classrooms and now you’d like to know how to create engaging, cutting edge mapping projects for your students to contribute to. This workshop will demonstrate examples of this and empower you to use the tools you need to create mapping activities in your classroom.

Teacher professional development with GIS is challenging, due to the steep technical learning curve of GIS and the overlapping constraints of curricular alignment, classroom management, and limited instructional time. Through five years of extensive professional development work with teachers, we have identified a strategy for highly effective professional development, integrating technical skills training with curriculum development, and several reliable tactics, lessons that both educate teachers about GIS and engage their thinking about curriculum and instruction. This session presents both the overall strategy and three time-tested tactics for teacher professional development with GIS: (1) a social use of GIS, (2) a personal inquiry with GIS, and (3) building a data collector to generate a GIS layer. We will demonstrate these lessons using ArcGIS Online, a free resource for K-12 teachers. Session attendees will receive handouts documenting these professional development strategies and URLs to obtain digits.

Explore recent research in the science of learning in order to transform traditional ways of teaching geography and promote deeper and persistent learning. Transforming students into geographical thinkers enables them to make connections and apply concepts long after the course ends. This session demonstrates how to move students toward expertise in thinking geographically through specific, but not necessarily intuitive, strategies based on empirical research in learning science. These include retrieval practice for no-stakes learning opportunities; spaced repetition of threshold concepts; interleaving different but related topics to encourage discrimination and enhance learning; and integration of feedback that supports student metacognition. Small, incremental changes in current classroom practice can result in significant and transformational ways to empower students to think geographically. 

Your students are passionate, but not about geography. They can read, but don’t want to. Find out how you can push students to want to learn geography through a combination of reading powerful news articles and engaging in provocative activities. Watch as their growing comfort level with the content allows them to soon begin to talk the talk of geographers.

As geography teachers, we are aware that we:

1) Need to continually advocate with teachers of other disciplines on how geography is essential and can overlap with different concepts they teach.

2) That geography is a solid platform to show real-world applications of math and science.

3) Geography also provides the opportunity for communicating through the language arts.

In this panel discussion, Heather Moll and Gale Ekiss will discuss and generate ideas on how to engage teachers of the other disciplines in this conversation.

The legacies of social, economic, and environmental injustices related to redlining are mapped through the work of the Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of Richmond. New American History explores how our digital scholarship, including Mapping Inequality, Renewing Inequality, and the Social Vulnerability Index helps K16 educators and students visualize complex data using GIS and historical documents to understand how systemic inequities persist in our communities today..

Many scholars refer to the current period in human-environment history as the Anthropocene (the Age of Humans). No place on Earth is unaffected by human influences, and the pace and magnitude of environmental change are accelerating. This reality has both practical and ethical consequences for social studies educators. This session brings together ideas related to the importance of human-environment thinking in geography education and the ethics of what teachers should be doing to better prepare students for college, careers, and civic life in the Anthropocene.

In this session, Karen Guerrero, will investigate effective teacher leadership development strategies, current research, and discoveries, and provide an opportunity to participate in a discussion on teacher leadership and ways to strengthen geography education across disciplines. In addition, voices from the field and freely accessible resources will be shared to address the following content and skills:

Understanding of how geography links to other K-12 subjects.
Development of teacher leadership skills through the integration of curriculum to support language learners for teachers of all disciplines

How do you use information from personal travel experiences to help connect students to geographic concepts, beyond a typical travel picture slideshow? This session will model methods for incorporating materials collected from personal travel experiences, and also provide information on organizations and fellowships that are available to teachers to help them travel. Through the incorporation of geospatial technologies, photos, and other technologies, teachers can use professional and personal travel to bring meaningful learning experiences back to their own students.

Have you ever considered publishing your geography lesson idea or research project? Ask questions of editors, guest editors, and reviewers of The Geography Teacher and the Journal of Geography to learn more about the publication process for both journals and how you can become a successful author