Annie reports that her ” journey as a GeoEducator was not linear; teaching was not even in my original career plans! In middle school, I aspired to become a disc jockey because I loved music–and I wanted to meet Springsteen! In high school, I joined the school newspaper and aspired to become a journalist. Girls could be the next Woodward and Bernstein, right? A summer job as a camp counselor led me into education, and as social studies and English were my best subjects, I became certified in both and began teaching middle school in 1992. Halfway through my third year, the principal “voluntold” me I would be attending a three-week summer institute at Virginia Tech University, sponsored by National Geographic. I was intrigued!” Read more at http://ncge.org/member-spotlight

“The Cultural Legacies of Slavery in Virginia” is an outgrowth of the VGA-funded workshops that Johnny Finn co-organized a couple years back with Christopher Newport University dance professor Ann Mazzocca. This special issue includes three peer-reviewed articles and three peer-reviewed lesson plans. There were 13 authors among the six publications, of whom four were graduates of CNU’s Master’s in teaching program, one is a current CNU psychology major, and six are in-service teachers from around the state.

See Table of Contents

Check out these articles from the special AP® Human Geography issue of the Journal of Geography! Instructions on how members can access journal articles online can be found here.

Here are a few of the many great articles that can be found in this issue (Volume 115, Issue 3): Placing Advanced Placement® Human Geography: Its Role in U.S. Geography Education, Sarah Witham Bednarz; Advanced Placement® Human Geography: Looking Back and Looking Ahead, David A. Lanegran & Donald J. Zeigler; Perspectives on the Development and Future of Advanced Placement® Human Geography, Barbara Hildebrant; and many more!

NCGE needs your help. We need YOU to call or email the legislative assistant who handles education appropriations for your US Senator and ask that the Senator sign on to the “Wicker/Whitehouse Dear Colleague” letter in support of funding for high quality social studies education.

Please call your two US Senators today! Call 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to your Senator’s office. Ask the receptionist for the name of the staffer who handles education funding. Then ask to leave a voicemail, or ask for the email address of that staffer and send them an email. Please contact both of your US Senators.

HERE IS A MESSAGE FOR YOU TO GIVE TO THE STAFF MEMBER HANDLING EDUCATION APPROPRIATIONS:
My name is __________ and I live in ______(town)_________ in (your state)

• I am (calling/writing) because I am concerned about the quality of instruction in civics, economics, geography and history in our schools.
• Our local schools need help to offer high quality instruction in these subjects, which are vital to our understanding of the world and our representative democracy.
• Please urge the Senator to sign on to the Dear Colleague letter circulated by Senators Wicker and Whitehouse in support of funding for high quality instruction in civics, economics, geography and history.
• If you have any questions about why this is needed in our schools, please contact me at (email address or phone number).

In addition, please continue to reach out to your member of the US House of Representatives and ask that they sign onto the “Ross/Graham Dear Colleague” letter on appropriations for civics, economics, geography and history.

Unfortunately, the Administration did not include funding for these new grant programs in their FY’17 budget recently submitted to Congress. This means we must ensure full funding for these vitally needed competitive grants through the Congressional Appropriations process. Your calls to your two Senators and US House member are critically important to the success of this effort.

Congratulations to Annie! Annie is a member of Alpha Upsilon in the Blue Ridge District and teaches at Buford Middle School. She serves as the state co-coordinator for the Virginia Geographic Alliance. Annie is pursuing an add-on endorsement in Administration and Supervision and will use her scholarship to pay the additional $1000 charge for the field experience, which is a new requirement of the program. The Dorothy Marshall Scholarship is Virginia’s newest scholarship in the amount of $1000, awarded annually to a Virginia AΔK member who, as an active educator, is pursuing an advanced degree or an additional certification.

Congratulations!

Are you a high school educator in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed? Help your students prepare to enter the Visualize Your Water Challenge. Challenge is open now!

The challenge is seeking creative and compelling visualizations of water quality in the Chesapeake Bay and Great Lakes Basin states*. From your local stream to the entire watershed, high school students are challenged to tell the story of nutrient pollution in their region in creative and innovative ways using mapping tools. Participating in the Visualize Your Water challenge will give your students the opportunity to master career-ready technology skills, learn more about nutrient pollution in your local watershed and receive recognition and prizes for their contributions.

This challenge is hosted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Geological Survey, and a coalition of government agencies and private industry in support of the work of the Challenging Nutrients coalition and the White House ConnectED Initiative).

*Eligible states: Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin.

If you have any questions, please contact vizurwater@epa.gov.

VGA congratulates Barbara Crain – recipient of a NOVA Presidential Sabbatical!
These sabbaticals require a research component which will ultimately benefit her students, community and beyond. 

Barbara says:
“My research proposal is to 1) volunteer as a language (German/English) instructor in my home town in Germany for incoming migrants and 2) interview those that want to be interviewed as to their journey as well as to their future plans if there are any and 3) to drive to some of those borders that were closed for authentic photos. It all (photos, stories, videos) will be incorporated into a geostory map which will then made available to my students, NOVA students in general and, of course, all VGA members.”

You may be familiar Population Connection’s  long-popular resource, World Population, a short video-animation of the history of world population of the past 2,000 years. A new version of World Population is now part of a new website, WorldPopulationHistory.org that has a number of interactive features and rich content to help students learn more about human geography – past, present and projected.  We designed the site with students and teachers of World Geography and AP Human Geography in mind. Included are six downloadable lesson plans.

See this press release for more information on the website’s features.

The report was produced at the The Gilbert M. Grosvenor Center for Geographic Education. The press release concludes:

The results from this study report that 14 states are requiring geography for high school graduation and 13 for middle school completion, either as a stand-alone, option, or combined course, and an average of 13 states at both levels do not require geography and 25 states allow local school districts to make graduation and middle school curriculum decisions. Geography is also represented in all individual state standards, but mainly as a strand in social studies documents.