Summary Death Valley National Park, CA may be the most diverse geographically in the country. Death Valley is the hottest place on earth, the driest and lowest place in North America and the largest NP outside of Alaska. From -282 Badwater, the lowest place in the Western Hemisphere, one can see the often snow-capped 11,049' […]
Summary As instructional time for social studies continues to shrink in many K–12 settings, geography educators face increasing pressure to demonstrate the relevance, rigor, and interdisciplinary potential of the discipline. This session invites participants into a discussion of current trends in geography education, including effective teaching, data-visualization, geospatial technologies, and STEM aligned inquiry that positions […]
Summary Stories of the Chesapeake offers a compelling glimpse into the cultures, communities, and environmental challenges of America’s estuary, the Chesapeake Bay. As one of the nation’s most important natural laboratories for geographic inquiry, the region provides a powerful example of how physical landscapes and human systems interact across space and time. Stretching across six […]
Summary OpenStreetMap is the world's largest crowdsourced geospatial database, powering thousands of applications across corporate, government, nonprofit, and academic sectors. As a free and community-driven project, anyone can contribute and anyone can use the data. As a tool for teaching geography, OpenStreetMap (OSM) is unparalleled. Mapping, as a classroom activity, fosters spatial awareness and locational […]
Summary While World War II is often taught through the lens of distant battlefields, the domestic war of mobilization was won through a landscape shaped millions of years prior. This presentation demonstrates how the Fall Line—the geomorphologic boundary between the Piedmont and the Coastal Plain—served as the primary spatial determinant for American mobilization in the […]
Summary Explore the history and background of the Arab-Israeli conflict through primary source documents and teaching strategies that support critical analysis of texts. Major historical developments in the Arab-Israeli conflict will be discussed. Participants will develop content knowledge, experience student activities, and receive ready-to-use resources and links to digital resources with detailed lesson plans including […]
Summary This session examines some of the major environmental challenges in the Middle East, particularly around water resources, and the ways that Israelis, Jordanians, and Palestinians are cooperating to meet these challenges. Participants will develop pedagogic content knowledge about environmental challenges in the Middle East; regional cooperation among Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority to […]
Summary Promoting critical thinking among students is often at the top of our teaching goals. We want students to develop a careful, questioning approach to their work so they are critical of the sources they use to find answers and be cautious about the answers they reach. Innovations in artificial intelligence -- particularly the latest […]
Summary This session highlights the findings of a national survey of teachers (n=404) in the United States. To explore classroom practices in geography, a survey was designed and distributed to teachers working in public and private schools. Findings reveal which tools are frequently used to teach geography. Findings also focus on key topics and skills […]
Summary Often relegated to the last few days of the school year, Oceania and the Pacific Islands rarely get much time or focus in geography classrooms. This presentation will focus on how educators can infuse their lessons on mapping, spatial thinking, and geospatial technology with indigenous mapping practices to highlight differing approaches to representing geographic […]
