PRESENTER: DYLAN KANE | STRAND: MIDDLE SCHOOL | ROOM: CONRAD A
Ready to take on vocabulary from a whole new angle? Discover a new way to pre-teach vocabulary with a strategy that combines image analysis, building language connections, and making predictions about the content right at the beginning of each unit. Participate in a live demo to see how the strategy plays out in the classroom, learn how to make a personalized version of your own, and walk away with a complete template and instructions to make implementation as easy as possible.
PRESENTER: SARAH BEDNARZ | STRAND: APHG | ROOM: CONRAD D
The Advanced Placement Human Geography Teacher Group on Facebook has more than 7000 members who actively support each other by answering content-related questions, sharing instructional materials and approaches, and providing resources to their colleagues. I will examine this group of “teachers teaching teachers” as a form of job-embedded professional development that encourages what has been termed “pedagogically productive talk”, a discussion that develops participants’ adaptive expertise and professional judgment. Using examples from the Group postings, and an analysis of the nature of the discourse, I reflect on ways that this online community does and does not offer high-quality professional development and improve instructional practice.
PRESENTER: KATRINA STACK & DEREK ALDERMAN | STRAND: HIGHSCHOOL | ROOM: SYMPHONY I
There has long existed a need for incorporating a wider and deeper understanding of the Civil Rights Movement into geography education. Important to teaching about and for racial justice is the generation of geography curriculum and teaching content that identifies and explores the specific material landscapes and places produced by and which have shaped the African American Freedom Struggle. We suggest that “tent city geographies” have the potential to help teach the Movement from an explicitly place-making perspective and explore the historical geography of the encampments. Black activist communities and their allies built these tent cities (also called Freedom Cities or Villages) on Black-owned land to provide housing to sharecroppers and tenant farmers subjected to “retaliatory eviction” for marching, attending mass mobilization meetings, and trying to register to vote. These tent/freedom city geographies offer an alternative to the “canon” of Civil Rights memory traditionally used to educate about the Movement. Curriculum standards typically highlight better-known marches, boycotts, and sit-ins that also emphasize depictions of victimized activists. Through the tent city geographies, there is an opportunity to re-center forgotten places and people, especially through the production of home, complete with its joy, struggle, and efforts of day-to-day resistance.
PRESENTERS: KRISTINE GERBER & CORY JOHNSON | STRAND: HIGHSCHOOL | ROOM: SYMPHONY II
Geography and history intertwine to uncover hidden histories of underrepresented groups. This session will show how ArcGIS, 3D imaging, and GIS technology was applied in one American city (Omaha, NE), and can be applied in other cities, to bring hidden history to light. The session highlights a recent project by students and teachers in the Omaha Public Schools focused on the predominantly African American North 24th Street. Using city directories, Sanborn maps, aerial photographs, historic images, oral interviews, and mapping software students and teachers studied and recreated digitally the more than 100 buildings and residences that once lined North 24th Street in 1958. They also interviewed people who lived, worked, and visited North 24th Street in the 1950s and early 1960s. Once completed, people could visualize what North 24th looked like before racial riots and disinvestment changed the landscape in the area. The maps were presented to African American community leaders to inspire continued redevelopment in the area and serve as a local resource for secondary curriculum in economics, geography, and African American history.
PRESENTER: SARAH COPPERSMITH | STRAND: HIGH SCHOOL/HIGHER ED | ROOM: MARQUETTE I
Action research is a framework that allows and promotes inquiry within the practice. This session models teacher action research and reports on a Longview Foundation-supported study of undergraduate world regional geography students investigating spatial citizenship, critically examining regional transnational issues while making local to global connections by exploring and creating options for personal or collaborative action. Participants explored and reflected on a researched model of pro-social behavior via global leadership/competency and identity self-assessments, reported through written assignments, outdoor land-use exercises, student-designed regional geo-inquiries, and GIS online story maps. In addition, participants engaged in reflective collaborative inquiry and regional understanding with an international partner. This teacher action research project reports participant-identified disorienting events/transformative learning, perspective transformation, and ambiguity tolerance while engaging
PRESENTER: RANDY WILKIE | STRAND: MIDDLE SCHOOL/HIGH SCHOOL | ROOM: CONRAD B
As a teaching strategy, Superheroes link imagination to reality. The PPT presentation explores sustainability by creating a ‘fortress of solitude’ through the exploration of natural landscapes. Superheroes develop mapping skills and explore situations such as rivalries, diversity, empowerment, and natural disasters. Students propose solutions to current issues through their hero stories and StoryMaps.
PRESENTER: JAMES FESTER | STRAND: MAGE HOSTED-K-12 | ROOM: SYMPHONY IV
The belief that students learn best when given control of their own learning is the guiding principle behind Park Based Learning, a new project which helps educators connect with curriculum and resources that allow them to use national parks as virtual and experiential classrooms. The approach focuses on classroom adaptations of inquiry-based techniques used by park staff to connect visitors to the nation’s natural, cultural, and historic landscapes. Since visiting isn’t always a possibility for schools and classes due to distance, time, and money, we have developed free resources to help connect teachers and their students virtually, resources that all attendees will leave with for use with their own students
PRESENTER: CHARLIE FITZPATRICK | STRAND: LIS/GIS HOSTED-K-12 | ROOM: SYMPHONY III
Interactive maps are an educator’s friend! You can play, explore, discover, learn, analyze, and present, easily, with ArcGIS Online. This session hits the basics with which you can teach next week! Start easily, with pre-built resources, then peer over the ridge at what’s possible.
PRESENTER: JUDITH PAINTER | STRAND: MIDDLE SCHOOL/JUNIOR HIGH | ROOM: CONRAD A
As educators, we want our students to learn how amazing the natural world is and how we can protect it for the future. Through geo-inquiry, investigation, explorer mindset, and experiences beyond their normal days we have encouraged our students to become active and involved citizens within their communities. This presentation and discussion will cover the pre-pandemic and pandemic strategies and activities that our students participated in to encourage their growth and understanding and empathy for the natural world. Using resources in our community and from a National Geographic Explorer Grant, our students were active in hiking, fishing, geolocating, gardening, and so much more to emphasize the relationship between the natural world beyond the school walls and the curriculum covered in the classroom. Classes directly involved included geography, architecture, engineering, and technology. Indirectly, the students utilized skills found in all core content classes.
Strategies and resources shared are based on actual students with IEPs, English Language Learners, and a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds along with other heterogeneous mixes of students.
PRESENTER: EUNJUNG KIM | STRAND: EARLY CHILDHOOD/ELEMENTARY | ROOM: CONRAD C
Attendees will explore how to facilitate learning in social studies classrooms using familiar local names and drawing a mental map of students’ communing, which connect to their community’s history, culture, and geography in engaging ways.
Using names of familiar places will intrigue students and stimulate inquiry-based learning about the diverse communities, histories, and cultures in their area.
Attendees will also revisit a mental map to stress the importance of fostering a sense of place by utilizing students’ familiarity. Drawing a mental map of students’ commuting areas is a way of recognizing where they live and reflect on what their experiences are in their neighborhood and in the vicinity of their school. This process also provides meaningful information about students’ subjective perceptions of place and space.
Both lesson examples intend to center places in teaching social studies and utilize students’ knowledge and lived experiences of their local social, cultural, and physical environment. Centering places and prioritizing geography at the elementary level are imperative to strengthening students’ sense of local experience in their community, which also becomes a basis for understanding expanded regions (bigger communities of states, nations, and the world).
In conclusion, the instructional shift of centering places and spaces in K- 6 social studies classrooms lead young students to internalize the pathway of seeing where they live, expanding their sense of living boundaries beyond their street blocks and areas and laying the groundwork for civil actions in their community across lines of race, ethnicity, and class, which often are factors for de facto segregation.
The presenter invites attendees to share their ideas of centering places in teaching.
PRESENTER: SANDRA MAKIELSKI & ANNA-LISA DAHLGREN| STRAND: MIDDLE SCHOOL/JUNIOR HIGH | ROOM: CONRAD D
“Ana ‘uhibuhu!” You may not recognize this slogan in Arabic but we’re sure you would recognize the golden arches that adorn each of its restaurants. In this super interactive presentation, participants will be asked to dive into the impacts of globalization with a focus on the American fast food industry in Southwest Asia. You’ll walk away with resources to use in the classroom and we’ll show you how we’d tailor to fit both middle and high school classrooms. The strategies may easily be adapted to in-person learning or virtual learning. You are certain to walk away with new perspectives on your favorite fast food restaurant and a little bit of Arabic! Yalla! Come join us!
PRESENTERS: AUSTIN CRANE & PANELISTS | STRAND: HIGH SCHOOL | ROOM: SYMPHONY I
This presentation discusses relational thinking as a foundational and exciting dimension of geography education, which can illuminate many challenges the world is facing today. Incorporating relational thinking in geography classrooms entails teaching our students to analyze how various geographic processes and issues – from migration to inequality, to climate change – do not exist in isolation, but instead, are produced spatially in relation to other historical, social, economic, political, and environmental forces. Relational thinking helps us see how different people and places exist in relation to one another, which profoundly impacts our geographical imaginations. To illustrate the power of relational thinking, I draw from my Ph.D. research on migration in Europe to consider the geographical forces that have produced recent migration flows and, yet, how migration is often framed as an isolated ‘problem’ or ‘crisis’. Then, I consider how we might think differently – or relationally – about migration with students in our classrooms. Therefore, this presentation will include both an analytical discussion of relational thinking as a skill to teach students in Geography education, as well as specific content focused on the politics of migration in Europe today. Specific classroom applications will be considered, and relevant teaching resources will be provided.
PRESENTERS: KENNETH KELLER, GREG SHERWIN, LAURA KMETZ & PAUL GRAY | STRAND: HIGHSCHOOL | ROOM: SYMPHONY II
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 teach students to efficiently learn content. Using data to 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.
PRESENTERS: DIANNE MCKEE & KAREN GUERRERO | STRAND: ALL GRADE LEVELS | ROOM: MARQUETTE I
Dive in for an engaging exploration on how to create a geography-based Civic Action Project (CAP) for your classroom! Through hands-on activities, teacher-created CAP examples, and small and whole group discussions, you will learn what a CAP is, how to develop and facilitate one in your classroom, and how to integrate technology such as story mapping and Google maps. You will leave with inspirational ideas and step-by-step instructions on how to create a CAP. You will also learn about GeoCivics resources and professional development opportunities. GeoCivics is funded by the US Department of Education and operates through the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University.
PRESENTER: STEPHANIE MOORE | STRAND: HIGH SCHOOL | ROOM: CONRAD B
Transform your geography classroom into an immersive learning experience. In today’s world of technology and distractions allowing students to create using hands-on stem strategies or interactive activities can increase the level of engagement. Get ideas on ways to transform your class and have time to collaborate with colleagues on lessons of your own. We will discuss activities such as CSI globalization, earthquake shake tables, pipeline projects, simulations and more.
PRESENTER: RILEY SINN (MR. SINN) | STRAND: MAGE HOSTED-K-12 | ROOM: SYMPHONY IV
Tired of looking at a sea of sleeping students? Ready to learn a new way to review different geographic concepts? In this session, you will learn how to create an escape room that will put your students in the driver’s seat of their learning. During this session, Mr. Sinn will walk you through an escape room he made for his students and explain how to create your own unique escape room.
PRESENTER: ALYSSA LARSEN & BRITTANY KOEHLER | STRAND: LIS/GIS HOSTED-K-12 | ROOM: SYMPHONY III
This session will explore ways to introduce geospatial technologies to students at the secondary level. Two current Social Studies teachers will share lessons from their classrooms centered around inquiry-based learning utilizing ArcGIS. Many strategies and tools will be discussed by these two educators who are passionate about making ArcGIS relevant to students in a world more readily embracing geotechnologies.
PRESENTER: MICHAEL MEWBORNE | STRAND: MIDDLE SCHOOL | ROOM: CONRAD A
Geography education exists in tension between big social, political, economic, and environmental issues and landscapes of boredom. We teach and learn about spatial variability while our daily routines present us with very little. If we teach about places or problems that are too distant or grand, do we lose our students? This session will address three related paradoxes within geography classrooms: tension between the distant and the local, the important and the mundane, and the relevant and irrelevant. How do we engage our students to teach them the skills of a geographer, including seeing beauty and possibility in the landscapes we have grown to overlook? We will look at specific resources and activities to address each paradox in a variety of grade bands.
We will critically analyze tensions between teaching about world regions and local places, addressing big problems using small solutions, and maintaining a sense of relevance when topics or assets vacillate between extremes of grandeur and the mundane.
PRESENTER: LUKE PARKER | ALL GRADE LEVELS | ROOM: CONRAD C
PRESENTERS: DIANNE GIELSTRA, NICCOLE V. CERVENY & LYNN MOORMAN | STRAND: HIGH SCHOOL | ROOM: CONRAD D
Iceland offers a dynamic environment for students to explore field-based learning, yet barriers to travel for experiential learning are present (distance to site, costs to travel, and overall logistics). Novel technologies increase the access and reach of field-based experiences for the K-16 classroom. 360- imagery collected for several sites in Iceland were used to develop virtual mini-field trips by leveraging interdisciplinary educational content to focus on topics in physical and cultural geography.
Using instructional resources collected during the authors’ participation in the 2019 National Council for Geographic Education’s GeoCamp Iceland, and using GeoEPIC, a free digital platform to host educational content in an online virtual reality environment, we created an “Escape Iceland” learning activity. Using information points in 360 photo spheres, the mini-field trips were connected as several escape room experiences for wide dissemination into the physical classroom. Grounded in education theory, the escape rooms build collaboration as students review geography topics to discover hidden clues within the landscape. The clues allow the students to solve the environmental puzzle as they acquire knowledge to teleport to the next Icelandic location. The authors also showcase a Quick Start Template tool for educators, a guide to help identify pertinent information to integrate earth systems science, cultural, and historical topics into these experiences. Escape Iceland is a novel way to explore space and place and use geographic inquiry to explore the rich geodiversity of Iceland.
PANELISTS: JOHN HEPPEN, RYAN WEICHELT, & J. CLARK ARCHER | STRANDS: HIGHSCHOOL/HIGHER ED. | ROOM: SYMPHONY I
Attendees will be able to present to students how elections and electoral geography are ways to teach concepts and some of the standards of geographic education in a non-partisan manner. The panel will incorporate election results and associated geographic data. Panelists will demonstrate how reapportionment in congress and the electoral college can be used to discuss migration patterns and population growth between regions of the country. The redistricting and redrawing of congressional districts introduces geographic concepts such as compactness and contiguity and shows how electoral boundaries can influence election results. Electoral geography drawing on the 2020 elections can be used to demonstrate how different regions of the country due to population characteristics and economics receive more visits from presidential candidates than other states. Possible lesson plans, lectures and classroom instruction can be aimed at geographical aspects of national, state, and or local elections. Lessons plans, lectures, and classroom instruction be scaled down to local levels to further connect students to their location and place. The panelists hope that attendees can take away from the presentation how elections and democracy can be used to learn geographic concepts in ways that bridge ideological and political differences in communities. Attendees will receive access to materials they can use.
PRESENTERS: INJEONG JO & REBECCA THEOBALD | STRAND: ALL EDUCATORS | ROOM: SYMPHONY II
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.
PRESENTERS: JOSEPH STOLTMAN, LEAH HOOD & KELLY SWANSON | STRAND: HIGH SCHOOL | ROOM: MARQUETTE I
What is in a name? It is a question that is often pondered amidst the multitude of languages that are represented on maps, in texts, and included in everyday conversations. Names often carry a considerable amount of geographical, historical, and cultural baggage. Groups may have different names for the same geographic feature. A critical examination of the name of a feature or place may reveal interesting, and sometimes disturbing, results. The study of a geographical name may determine that social justice is necessary and/or that the cultural heritage of a group has been ignored. In some instances, geographical names are discriminatory and reflect negatively on individuals, an ethnic group, or an event. Restoration of indigenous names, renaming of features and places, the removal of names that stereotype individuals and groups, and changing legacy names that reference economic and cultural colonization have occurred in many parts of the world. Geographical names are platforms for discussion and debate that sometimes accompany other issues. Understanding the cultural importance of names, the influences of geographic names within international contexts, and the historical events encompassed in a name provides a revealing perspective focused on the inquiry question: What is in a Name?
PRESENTERS: NICOLE MEANS & TORRENCE WILLIAMS | STRAND: MIDDLE SCHOOL/HIGH SCHOOL | ROOM: CONRAD B
Gentrification has proven to evoke a host of different viewpoints in our communities today. There are those who view the economic benefits and luxuries that arise out of the phenomenon, but that is but one perspective. On the other hand, some view gentrification as the eradicator of rich histories and stories—a means of oppressing people, historical events, and other relevant happenings. As educators, we have a responsibility to provide diverse and holistic perspectives for our students. Additionally, we must equip our students with the tools necessary to question missing or misrepresented histories. History is fallible! As students explore their local landscapes, they will learn to question: Whose story is missing? What is the meaning behind the name of that street? Why is that neighborhood perceived a certain way? This session will provide educators with the tools necessary to dismantle the dominant narratives within their local communities.
PRESENTERS: JESS WINKELAAR | STRAND: MAGE HOSTED-K-12 | ROOM: SYMPHONY IV
FULL DETAILS COMING SOON
PRESENTERS: JARAUX WASHINGTON | STRAND: LIS/GIS HOSTED-K-12 | ROOM: SYMPHONY III
This session will explore the evolution of student education and resources by highlighting the work of 2892 and sharing how you can get involved.
There are 2892 miles across the continental United States. Each of these miles symbolizes stories of the relationship between people and land that have been mistold, misrepresented, or omitted. 2892 Miles to Go is a social justice geo-inquiry program amplifying community stories led and told by people most often left out of the common narratives of human history and culture.
We seek to amplify educators, young changemakers, community leaders & storytellers who journey along selected routes in their own communities in an effort to re-examine, retell, and reteach place-based community narratives. These multimedia stories are layered onto story maps that become the textbooks we wish we could have always had – voiced by many, rooted in collective wisdom, and living testaments to a multi-dimensional past that intersects squarely with the issues and experiences of our present. Then with these stories as guides, community leaders walk alongside educators and youth to co-design learning journeys and execute action-driven projects that support more just communities for everyone.
PRESENTER: NICOLE MEANS | STRAND: MIDDLE SCHOOL/HIGHSCHOOL/APHG | ROOM: CONRAD A
The traditional classroom setting where the teacher acts as the “sage on the stage” no longer meets the needs of our students. We must move our students from rote-memorization and the belief that there is one correct answer. By utilizing, “question-storming” techniques, students are held accountable for their learning because they are driven by their own curiosities. After students produce their own questions, they prioritize them and create an action plan that will guide their learning. Through this interactive session, the presenter will challenge attendees to transition classroom environments using this fun and engaging tactic. Attendees will be provided an abundance of exemplars so they can begin implementing this strategy today!
PRESENTER: GARY GRESS | STRAND: MIDDLE SCHOOL/HIGHSCHOOL | ROOM: CONRAD C
In 1876 from beans and biscuits to upscale dining, Harvey Hotels and restaurants evolved along Western rail lines civilizing America and taming the frontier. (Ahead of its time,) Employing women and minorities it became the first American chain restaurant. In this investigative interactive session, we’ll explore this unique cultural phenomenon. Handouts provided.
PRESENTER: ANNA-LISA DAHLGREN | STRAND: APHG | ROOM: CONRAD D
Explore how to infuse more innovative learning practices into your AP Human Geography class! Learn how students can have choices in their study and practice strategies and pick activities that work best for them through personalized learning pathways. Student mentoring, rapid cycle feedback, student voice, and connections between the course content and our local community help students see that geography is everywhere! Discover ways to empower students as learners, build community, leverage technology, and use former students to add value to the learning in our course.
This session is for you if you have these questions: How can I use personalized learning practices in a class that is tightly aligned to the CED? How can I empower students to learn challenging material in a way that works for them? How can I create a community of learners who support one another through their first AP class? How can I use former students as role models and leaders to enhance the academic community within my school?
PRESENTER: JERRY MITCHELL | STRAND: HIGHER ED. | ROOM: SYMPHONY I
Wicked problems are complex and challenging in their solutions (if there are any). These problems exist within our environment in the form of hazards and within our education systems, too. Geography educators recognize a multiplicity of scalar and structural impediments to effective geography teaching. Focusing on wicked environmental problems within that imperfect K-12 schooling and teacher preparation structure creates “super-wicked” problems: difficult concepts and remedies coming from both the environmental and educational domains. A review of several state physical science and geography education standards and teacher preparation programs in the United States highlights the difficulties but also provides hope for a new path.
PRESENTERS: CELESTE REYNOLDS & HILL | STRAND: HIGH SCHOOL/APHG | ROOM: SYMPHONY II
Field mapping is a mapping method in the OpenStreetMap community, dating back to the project’s origins in 2004 where individuals can create maps by collecting field data, annotating maps in the field, and add data to OpenstreetMap. Field data collection is the activity of recording observations of geographic features in the world. In this session, teachers can discover how they can get students to interact with their local communities using field papers, and begin shaping their community’s local map, and learn how their voice can be revealed in the map
PRESENTER: MIKE JABOT | STRAND: MIDDLE SCHOOL | ROOM: MARQUETTE I
The NASA AREN Project uses low-cost technologies flown on kites to extend spatial learning in classrooms by offering students the ability to collect remotely sensed data of their local environment. This presentation will introduce these technologies to participants and share how low-altitude imagery can be collected and used in their teaching. Examples of the technologies and data collected will be shared as well as how participants can become involved.
Participants will learn about the use of an open source technologies to collect low-altitude imagery; Participants will learn ways in which they can apply these technologies to their own classrooms
PRESENTER: HEATHER MOLL & GALE OLP EKISS | STRAND: ALL GRADES | ROOM: CONRAD B
As geography educators, we all are aware that we:
- Need to continually advocate with teachers of other disciplines on how geography is essential and can overlap with different concepts they teach.
- Geography is a solid platform to show real-world applications of math and science.
- Geography also provides the opportunity for communicating through the language arts.
In this short panel discussion, we would like to generate ideas on how to engage teachers of other disciplines in this conversation.
PRESENTER: CHRIS RIPKEN | STRAND: ALL EDUCATORS/ADMINISTRATORS | ROOM: SYMPHONY IV
Many schools have wonderful systems in place for supporting and training staff new to the profession but lack similar programs for teachers beyond their first year. Across the country, teachers are leaving the profession for a wide variety of reasons but without question, a lack of support is contributing to this crisis. This session will explore themes and metaphors related to geography and adventure to help develop support systems for teacher leaders.
PRESENTER: SHANNA CROSSON & STEPHANIE MCCLEERY | STRAND: LIS/GIS HOSTE-K-12 HOSTED | ROOM: SYMPHONY III
Teachers will talk about how and why they use StoryMaps in their classrooms.
PRESENTER: ERIKA LOWREY | STRAND: HIGH SCHOOL | ROOM: CONRAD A
This session examines environmental challenges in the Middle East, particularly around water resources, and the ways that Israelis, Jordanians, and Palestinians are cooperating to meet these challenges. It pays special attention to the importance of working across disciplines–social studies and earth sciences–to explore a complex set of issues. In addition, it focuses on the significance of building local communities through collaboration across deep division to achieve shared goals. In particular, the materials emphasize youth leadership and collaboration surrounding environmental issues in the Middle East.
PRESENTER: PHIL GERSMEHL | STRAND: ELEMENTARY | ROOM: MARQUETTE I
Human brains process spatial ideas like size, shape, proximity, and left-right sequence through different networks. Spatial skills help children learn to read (letter shapes, letter sequences, etc.) and do math (relative size, number-lines, etc.). In this session, primary-school teachers explore geography lessons that support reading and math instruction. These lessons are the base of learning progressions that extend through middle school and beyond. Administrators and higher-grade teachers see how to diagnose and intervene when students did not get foundational lessons like these in primary school.
PRESENTER: INGEONG JO | STRAND: HIGH SCHOOL, APHG | ROOM: CONRAD D
Geography teachers use various instructional strategies to promote students’ geography learning, from reading maps to making presentations (Hong et al. 2018). Funded by the University of West Georgia, in this study we aimed to collect instructional strategies for geography learning—GeoActivity types—to be implemented in College Board’s Advanced Placement Human Geography (APHG) courses. Collaborating with five experienced APHG teachers, we identified several GeoActivity types and documented detailed instructional processes, implementation strategies, assessment methods, expected learning outcomes, and tips and recommendations for APHG teachers. In this session, we introduce four GeoActivity types – Analysis of maps and photos, Field study, Exam preparation, and End-of-year culminating project – to the audience and share specific approaches successfully implemented in classrooms by experienced APHG teachers. Although the four GeoActivity types introduced in this presentation have different goals and motivations all of them aim to develop and improve students’ geography learning. We believe our presentation offers valuable resources for all geography teachers, including those who have little or no APHG teaching experience. Other stakeholders, including preservice geography teacher educators and teacher professional development organizers and facilitators, may also find these resources useful.
PRESENTER: RACHEL HANSEN | STRAND: HIGH SCHOOL | ROOM: SYMPHONY I
Counter-mapping empowers historically excluded groups to advocate for their rights by centering their own voices in the mapping process. Drawing from unique personal perspectives, these maps shape more holistic understandings of community needs, wants, and solutions. In this session, we’ll explore a nine-week geography curriculum aimed at improving critical spatial literacy skills through counter-mapping. Through this process, youth gain access to valuable community assets and resources that improve their sense of belonging and quality of life. Counter-mapping is a means for young people to build and practice critical spatial thinking skills and take action on social justice issues in their community in ways that produce real change.
PRESENTER: SHANA CROSSON, ANNIE EVANS & MICHELLE LEBLANC | STRAND: HIGHSCHOOL | ROOM: SYMPHONY II
How do racial ideas become spatial practice? In this session, participants will explore digital tools based on maps, data, and primary sources that explore the history of racial segregation in the United States. Learn how these resources came to be and how they are being used in specific ways in classrooms across the country to expand our understanding of what redlining means, from HOLC maps to racial covenants. Hear from educators about how they use these tools and ideas to get students to reckon with this history and engage with their communities today.
PRESENTER: JEANNINE KUROPATKIN & FRANCES COFFEY | STRAND: HIGHSCHOOL | ROOM: CONRAD C
Every human possesses a “sense of place,” subjective feelings and memories evoked by a geographic location. Both culture and experience influence people’s perceptions of places and regions. This is especially evident of sacred places where physical or human characteristics interact to give spiritual meaning and significance. This inquiry-based lesson explores sacred places from a global to local scale of analysis, examines the unique nature of indigenous sacred places, and culminates with an investigation of local indigenous sacred sites. This lesson is the product of a 2022 Summer Academy field study of The GeoCivics Project: “Westward Expansion Through the Lens of Indigenous Communities.” The GeoCivics Project is funded by the US Department of Education and operates through the ASU Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College.
PRESENTERS: JOHN GREENE & BECCA CASTLEBERRY | STRAND: MIDDLE SCHOOL AND HIGH SCHOOL | ROOM: CONRAD B
The Oklahoma Alliance for Geographic Education will present a new lesson plan designed to illustrate how the themes of Geography and the Geo-Inquiry process can be applied to a wide range of disciplines, from English to History to Mathematics and beyond. The content presented in this lesson was selected as an illustrative example of how all subjects are used to understand a particular issue that impacts communities differently around the world. The particular focus of this lesson is on the basics of light pollution, and how this pollution affects humans, wildlife, and local and global economies. The activities will be presented through the lens of incorporating the National Geographic giant traveling maps but could be used with a host of different platforms.
The lesson plans, activities, and materials presented in this session will be made available so that all participants will be able to apply the materials to their classrooms.
PRESENTERS: JESSICA ELLISON | STRAND: MAGE HOSTED-K-12 | ROOM: SYMPHONY IV
The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps are windows into our communities, past and present. Dive into these digitized maps from places familiar and foreign, and engage in activities to help your students find culturally relevant connections within the intricately mapped stories of their neighborhoods.
PRESENTER: MATT WINBIGLER | STRAND: LIS/GIS CONSORTIUM HOSTED-K-12 | ROOM: SYMPHONY III
Workshop participants will view examples of units designed to teach geospatial thinking and use progressive GIS skills with students to explore topics in middle/high school Earth Systems science classes to see what is possible. Participants will consider their own geographic questions and how to apply the use of a GIS in these investigations.
GIS skills explored will include using curated map layers to explore a topic, creating a Survey123 to gather real-world data outside, filtering a survey-generated map layer, analyzing map layer data in a dashboard, and sharing final products via web apps, Story Maps, and Hubs. Although Earth Science examples will be used, the geospatial thinking and GIS skills are applicable across content boundaries.
PRESENTER: JOSEPH KERSKI | STRAND: MIDDLE SCHOOL, HIGH SCHOOL, HIGHER ED, & APHG | ROOM: CONRAD A
Collecting, mapping, analyzing, and communicating the results of field studies is enabled and made exciting by today’s Web GIS tools. In this workshop, you will be empowered to use Survey123, ArcGIS Online web maps, dashboards, and story maps so that your students can study noise, invasive species, historical homes, weather, water quality, animals, plants, and other data using these engaging and exciting tools.
The tools are free, require no software to be installed, and work on any device, any time. Some even work in offline mode. Your students will be using the same tools in use and in demand by nonprofit organizations, government agencies, private industry, and academia.
PRESENTERS: KAREN GUERRERO, JEANNINE KUROPATKIN, FRANCES COFFEY, ZENA LEWIS & NEDRA WHITE | STRAND: ELEMENTARY, MIDDLE SCHOOL & HIGH SCHOOL | ROOM: CONRAD C
GeoCivics explores civics through a geography lens. The GeoCivics Project, a grant-funded professional development place-based series, focused on Westward Expansion through the lens of stories not told in school curriculum by taking teachers “out West”, stopping along the way to learn from experts in the field, elders who share their stories, and historians who provide the long-lasting impact in hopes to re-shape what we know about our collective history. These K-12 teacher leaders who come from eight different states and two territories participated, collaborated, and each created 3-5 lessons based on their experiences and connections to new knowledge to bring back to their classroom and support all students, including linguistically diverse students, GeoCivics knowledge. In small groups, these lessons related to U.S. history, the geographic impact on the history being told, and how our future leaders will be actively involved in civic engagement will be explored, shared, and discussed.
Additional information: The GeoCivics Project supports culturally and linguistically diverse students in classrooms across the U.S. by developing a systemic plan to design and implement PD, digital resources, and GeoCivics lesson plans based on evidence-based strategies to further educate, support and empower K-12 teachers. This project provides an all-inclusive learning experience for students to develop geography-focussed social studies knowledge, academic vocabulary, and literacy skills using evidenced-based approaches to teaching diverse and underserved student populations. Leveraging the Arizona Geographic Alliance (AZGA) model that provides effective PD for teachers, GeoCivics partnered with teachers from underrepresented populations to participate and develop, collaborate, and create resources for K-12 educators.
PRESENTER: GB “TRIZ” RODRIGUEZ Ph.D. | STRAND: HIGH SCHOOL | ROOM: CONRAD D
Hip Hop cultural practices offer innovative, allmodal, youth-centered tools and strategies for student engagement and empowerment. Our cultural standard for excellence, known as Style, can be cultivated in classroom Ciphas to engender empathy and equality. The Geography curriculum is especially suited for putting to work the core cultural practices of Blackbook writing and Name stylizing, toward transformative change in schools and society.
In a 60-minute presentation, participants will be introduced to the evidence-based “True School” Hip Hop cultural, educational model developed in my innovative doctoral research, and deepened across the pedagogies and practices of my 9th grade Geography classroom (AP Human & World). Participants will listen to and watch a presentation on the model’s architecture, and view student work product and progress. They will be invited into contemplation, reflection, and connection, regarding how this evidence-based model can transform their own classrooms and communities.
MODERATORS: JEFF LASH & ELLEN FOSTER. | STRAND: UPPER ELEMENTARY, HIGH SCHOOL & HIGHER EDUCATION | ROOM: SYMPHONY I
The NCGE-GeoCamp Iceland is an experiential professional development opportunity. It is a graduate-level equivalent, short course in geographic inquiry and field methods for in-service teachers and education professionals. Iceland’s extraordinary and unique landscapes is the classroom and laboratory.
In this lightening session, the 2022 GeoCamp participants will share and discuss resources they developed from their Iceland experience.
- Icelandic Agriculture | Rick Bein
- Open Air Museums and Cultural Preservation | Jennifer Bray
- “Why do you keep going back?” Travel Tales from NCGE-GeoCamp Iceland | Ellen Foster
- Chasing lava flows and deep tremors: Iceland’s Natural Hazards Monitoring Program | Meredith McAllister
- Photographing Cultural Landscapes | Fae Montgomery
- Iceland Site and Situation – A StoryMap | Alex Northrup
- Land of Fire and Ice: Humans and their Environment | Ellis Pawson
- Finding a Place to Call Home: Iceland to Jamestown | Stephanie Shelton
- Incorporating Icelandic Travel Experiences into ArcGIS Online Maps | Suzanne Struve
- Tourism in Iceland | Debra Troxell
PRESENTER: LINDSEY BAILY | STRAND: HIGHSCHOOL | ROOM: SYMPHONY II
Rapid urbanization is one of the most revolutionary social and economic trends to affect the globe in recent decades The opportunities and challenges presented by this trend is an important component of Human Geography, as well as other disciplines.
While the great rural to urban migrations have seen people in search of better opportunities, rapid urbanization also presents enormous challenges to meeting people’s needs including infrastructure (transportation, water, energy, and connectivity), safety, housing, employment and green spaces. This is an important component of the APHG course, as well as other social studies disciplines.
In this hands-on session, engage in activities that explore challenges for residents of several of the world’s fastest growing cities. Topics include water availability, air pollution, climate vulnerability, and cities’ wealth gaps. Find creative ways to get students working with primary sources, current media and data sets.
PRESENTER: DAVID RUTHERFORD | STRAND: ALL EDUCATORS | ROOM: MARQUETTE I
Geography has been described as comprising study of peoples, places, and environments and the connections among them. Important connections are made at the level of the belief systems that are foundational to people’s lives. Oftentimes, however, these connections are not adequately made, in part because of underlying misunderstandings. This presentation provides a conceptual framework that can work to alleviate such misunderstandings at the level of foundational belief systems through explanation and education in the geography of religions and belief systems.
PRESENTER: KATRINKA SOMDHAL | STRAND: HIGHER EDUCATION | ROOM: CONRAD B
This short session will take the participants through a number of free online resources that can help high school, AP and university level instructors successfully integrate contemporary world problems into their courses. In particular I will introduce materials made with international relations and foreign policy classes in mind that can easily be used within geography classes. I will walk the participants through websites that contain articles, interactive maps and charts, videos, and pre-made simulations. I will have mini-modules to share on the Ukraine invasion, trade in the South China Sea, and contrasting migration patterns in Africa and Latin America. I will explain how the different materials, and modules, can be adapted for World Regional, AP, Cultural, Political, or Economic geography courses. There will be time at the end to explore the sites to look for materials on issues of concern to the participants.
PRESENTER: KERRI WESTGARD & SARA DAMON | STRAND: MAGE HOSTED-K-12 | ROOM: SYMPHONY IV
TEACHER LESSON SHARING & DISCUSSION PANEL: STEPHANIE MCCLEERY & MITCHELL TURNER
This presentation will provide a recap of a 6 session MAGE institute that launched in Spring 2022. A K-12 educator cohort received training, mentoring and support to create an empowering classroom activity that helps learners think and act like explorers. Institute content included National Geographic’s GeoInquiry Process and service-learning model and data collection and storytelling tools such as ArcGIS Survey 123, ArcGIS StoryMaps and more. Workshop resources and teacher-created lessons will be shared.
PRESENTER: WENDY FULLER | STRAND: LIS/GIS CONSORTIUM HOSTED-K-12 | ROOM: SYMPHONY III
Learn how GIS modules can be used in science classes to help illustrate different natural phenomena. Wendy will take you on a brief tour on how incorporating GIS into your curriculum will give your students spatial thinking experience.
PRESENTER: LISA TABOR | STRAND: MIDDLE SCHOOL, HIGH SCHOOL & HIGHER EDUCATION | ROOM: MARQUETTE I
The primary goal of this contribution is to help teachers better understand some relevant concepts and issues involved in sharing knowledge about the characteristics of climate and climatic change. The ideas build from existing knowledge regarding better strategies and approaches for teaching science and environmental issues, along with ideas about how climate change education is different. There is a need to address existing (mis)understandings and methods to help students identify what they want to know. This work discusses three relevant issues in climate change education. One aspect of this issue is the tendency to conflate the concepts of weather and climate. Another challenge with teaching about climate and climate change is understanding how the spatial scale (i.e., global versus local) and temporal scale (i.e., individual years versus millennia) are taught. Lastly, an additional task involves helping students understand the differences between natural variability in the Earth’s climate system.
PRESENTER: BOB KOLVOORD | STRAND: HIGH SCHOOL | ROOM: CONRAD B
We spend a great deal of time worrying about the form and function of K-12 curricula, driven in part by high-stakes assessment. However, we consult very little with the primary stakeholders, our students. In this presentation, we will feature projects from students participating in the Geospatial Semester (GSS) program in Virginia. Operating since 2005, the GSS offers students a chance to learn about geospatial technologies and apply to projects of their own interest, all while earning dual enrollment credit at James Madison University. While we’ve documented that participating in the GSS leads to enhanced spatial thinking and problem solving skills, we’ve not shared much about student projects. We’ll present an analysis of the topics chosen by the nearly 500 students participating in the ’21-’22 school year and show examples of the variety of projects done by the students. The range of topics chosen is illustrative of high school student interest in spatial problems and can be useful in adapting lessons and curricula to capture student interest.
PRESENTER: LISA SANDERS | STRAND: MAGE HOSTED-K-12 | ROOM: SYMPHONY IV
Project-based assessments provide students with the opportunity to apply their understanding of the content in ways that written assessments do not. For the past 5 years, I have been using project-based assessments, in both my regular and AP Human Geography courses. These assessments provide my students with opportunities to demonstrate their understanding of the content by analyzing data and using this data to explain geographic concepts in regard to their assignment country. In this session, we will look at the Population One-Pager assessment for AP Human Geography and regular Human Geography.
PRESENTER: JIM HANSON & MOLLIE BOUSU | STRAND: LIS/GIS CONSORTIUM HOSTED-K-12 | ROOM: SYMPHONY III
The Rondo area of St. Paul was a stable, middle-class, multi-racial community with an extremely strong sense of place. The construction of Interstate 94 in the 1960s cut through the heart of the Rondo African American neighborhood, leaving an emotional scar that endures to this day. Learn how AP Human Geography students used ArcGIS Online and old analog maps to digitally remap the destroyed Rondo homes, businesses, schools, and other buildings. This was done as a post AP exam project.
PRESENTER: KIM YOUNG | STRAND: MIDDLE SCHOOL & HIGH SCHOOL | ROOM: CONRAD D
An estimated 80% of plastic waste in the oceans comes from land-based sources and a substantial portion of that comes from unmanaged or poorly-managed dumpsites. To contain and clean up plastic waste from the land and ocean environments, governments need to understand where plastic waste is concentrated. Satellite imagery is increasingly and widely used in our world; in the Earth sciences, for agriculture, for journalism, for human rights investigation and humanitarian relief efforts, by cartographers and urban planners and archaeologists, for government intelligence, and by ordinary people to explore and to navigate. In this session, teachers will explore using satellite imagery to verify plastics dump sites identified by an artificial intelligence algorithm. Teachers will be able to replicate this process with students in the classroom, ultimately helping in the development of Global Plastic Watch, an open-source database of dumpsites.
PRESENTER: SUSAN KNOTT | STRAND: ELEMENTARY, MIDDLE SCHOOL, HIGHSCHOOL | ROOM: SYMPHONY I
Explore FREE agriculturally themed, standards-based resources that investigate where food is grown and the people who grow it. Workshop participants will complete hands-on activities that focus on geography concepts related to growing regions, global trade, organic foods, and more!
The newly revised 4th edition of the Food for Thought Curriculum, a partnership of the MN Alliance for Geographic Education and the MN Agriculture in the Classroom Program will be shared. Attendees will also receive access to a wealth of additional free resources, including over 400 lesson plans, engaging videos, and agricultural-themed maps and activities.
PRESENTER: DENISE STEWARDSON | STRAND: HIGH SCHOOL | ROOM: SYMPHONY II
Participants will connect the importance of geography to the agricultural production of the food, clothing, and shelter that we depend on in our daily lives. Through exploration of classroom-tested lessons and hands-on activities, teachers will learn strategies for active engagement in helping students understand how geography and agriculture impact their quality of life. The impacts of the geography/agriculture connection will be identified using the ESPeN model—economic, social, political, and environmental. Additionally, attendees will explore strategies for enhancing student discussion and assisting students in conducting risk assessments for topical issues. The presenter will share hundreds of free, online lessons tied to National Geography Standards, Common Core, and National Agricultural Literacy Outcomes. Attendee takeaways include digitally accessible resources and a resource bag of classroom materials.
PRESENTER: BUTEDMA DOVDON | STRAND: MIDDLE SCHOOL | ROOM: MARQUETTE I
The effect of message framing on environmental behavioral intention among “ger”
versus “apartment” dwelling middle school students in Ulaanbaatar Mongolia
Come learn about outer Mongolia, one of the least populated countries on Earth, and the environmental crisis facing its capital city of Ulaanbaatar. Listen to one teacher’s efforts to steer youth towards environmental consciousness and stewardship through her pilot study on early environmental education and behavioral intention. After the talk, the audience is invited to share ideas, expertise, and their personal experiences in motivating the youth towards environmentalism.
The pilot study was conducted with 301 students from 2 middle schools in Ulaanbaatar. One group read excerpts that employed positive message framing about the environment, and the other group read excerpts framed negatively.
Attitudes towards the environment improved among students who read negatively-framed environmental messages (p<.05). The experiment is currently being repeated in a more simplified format and extended to include a survey of 1,100 Mongolian 5th-grade students. The author intends to implement an environmental program in the public schools in Mongolia based on the results of the extended study. She seeks to incorporate ideas she learns from the audience into the development of an environmental curriculum for Mongolian youth so as to reverse the trend of thoughtless polluting of the environment.
PRESENTER: MARY SCHORSE | STRAND: SUPERVISORY/ADMINISTRATION | ROOM: CONRAD B
Geospatial science and technology (GST) refers to the use of geographic information systems, global positions systems, and remotely sensed imagery in spatial analysis. Understanding GST and knowing how to manipulate geographic data are skill sets in great demand across all sectors of the economy, yet GST remains poorly understood and minimally taught within the K-12 context in general and even the STEM context more specifically. The Delaware Center for Geographic Education (DCGE) has partnered with DelawareView (university-based and state member of AmericaView) to design and deliver a variety of GST-focused educational initiatives intended to raise awareness of the college and career potential of GST and encourage its adoption across the K-16 curriculum. These initiatives include K-12 teacher training workshops, re-designing state recommended curriculum to utilize GST as an instructional tool for engaging and motivating learning, dual enrollment GST courses for high school students, tertiary level geospatial.
PRESENTER: MICHELLE LEBA | STRAND: MAGE HOSTED-K-12 | ROOM: SYMPHONY IV
The presenter will share a variety of strategies to get students active and involved in geography learning.
PRESENTER: AMANDA HUBER | STRAND: LIS/GIS HOSTED-K-12 | ROOM: SYMPHONY III
DETAILS COMING SOON!