Florida Geographic Alliance Newsletter

2015

Spring

While You Were Out

Happy New Year from the Florida Geographic Alliance!

This fall has been a busy one at FGA!

From Florida Geography Awareness Week to Edcamps, there has been so much happening that we would love for you to catch up on. There is an opportunity for you to be involved in the Global Bridges Project which pairs schools in the United States to school overseas.

Also included is an interview with Nancy Watson, who was given the 2014 National Council for Geographic Education K-12 Distinguished Teaching Award.

With so much going on, there are always additional programs and opportunities to take part of! You can see availablities in the Opportunties section!

Please be sure to sign up for our mailing list! Don’t forget to tell your friends to follow us on Facebook! www.facebook.com/FLGeoAlliance

Want an article in next season's newsletter? Email flgeoalliance@gmail.com with your information!

Global Bridges Project

My name is Amy Bridgewater- Stalker.

I am a High School teacher in Fleming Island, FL and an advisory board member for the Florida Geographic Alliance. I am also the Global Bridges Project Coordinator. The Global Bridges Project is endorsed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. I am also currently doing a project with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs International Education and Resource Network (iEARN), Chris Stevens Youth Network (CSYN) program. This project is for teachers that are interested in creating curriculum based projects and collaboratively sharing with schools overseas. We have schools looking for collaborative partners in the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Italy, India, Lithuania, Tunisia, and Turkey (both Tekirdağ and Ankara).

The goal of the project is to help students to develop an understanding of other cultures and perspectives, thus empowering them to be responsible world citizens able to create informed solutions to global challenges. It will also allow students the opportunity to achieve the overall goal of the United Nations Global citizenship education which is “to empower learners to engage and assume active roles both locally and globally to face and resolve global challenges and ultimately to become proactive contributors to a more just, peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure and sustainable world.” Students need the ability to understand local as well as critical world issues and how they are interrelated. This project will help students recognize the challenges and opportunities of our increasingly distressed and closely entwined global community of cultures. Connecting American students with students in other countries will help them better understand critical world issues such as world hunger, poverty, maternal health, disease, environmental sustainability, gender equality, female empowerment and education, and conflict resolution.

The Global Bridges Project pairs schools in the U.S. with schools overseas. It opens dialogue between cultures. Students develop a multidimensional geographical global perspective and an understanding and empathy for people in other places.

Students gain the ability to understand local as well as critical world issues. Classes that participate in this project will use teleconferencing technology to communicate with students in foreign countries. Geography comes alive as students engage in authentic field work and original research through the use of photography and the interactive multimedia formats of maps, text, audio, still images, animation, graphs, charts, geo-spatial representations of information, and video. This activity integrates 21st century skills and the use of technology. Students create engaging rich media presentations teaching students in other countries about their local areas, countries, culture and language. Students discuss relevant local and global issues. Students work cooperatively and creatively with others to communicate and articulate thoughts and ideas clearly and effectively through the presentation media. Students then compare and contrast their local geography and history with students in other parts of the world. Students gain critical cultural knowledge through exchanges such as these. Students also gain in-depth content knowledge by applying basic knowledge to real locations that have meaning to them. Prospective classes that would be good international pairs are classes in Global Politics, Geography, World Religions, Economics, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Sociology, Environmental Science, World History, Global Perspectives, Information Technology in a Global Society, History, or Foreign Language.

Lili Monk is the director of this project. Lili Monk is a High School teacher at Bethesda, Maryland and teaches AP Human Geography and US Government. She received a distinguished Fulbright Teacher Award to Argentina in 2011. She is the former co-chair of AP human Geography Test Develop Committee, and present assistant chief reader. Lili received the National Council for Geographic Education Geography Teacher Award in 2012, and the Geography Teacher Journal Award 2014.

The National Council for Social Studies has identified "creating global citizens" as one of the most important missions facing social studies teachers. Creating opportunities for students to interact with geographic tools such as maps and globes will enable them to experience the world a lot closer than through a textbook.” (Lili Monk) Students will be exposed to other cultures and will be given the chance to appreciate perspectives other than their own. We have schools in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Italy, India, Lithuania, Turkey and Tunisia looking for sister schools. I hope we can continue to create new bridges and grow this project. Please let me know if you are interested in the Global Bridges Project. I will pair you with a school and add you to our website

If you are interested, Lili Monk and I will be presenting a webinar on this topic. It is entitled “Global Bridges Project- Creating Global Citizens by Connecting Students Around the World Through Relevant, Collaborative Projects”. It can be viewed athttp://www.globaleducationconference.com/forum/topics/global-bridges-project

Websites

The project website is http://creatingglobalbridges.com

The UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) website is http://en.unesco.org/aspnet/globalcitizens/act/projects/global-bridges-creating-global-citizens-usa

My project abstract can be viewed at https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=4465D0A3C7CE0768!581&authkey=!AAsy01NzyiN-qTc&ithint=file%2cdocm

To give you an idea of what you can do, my student projects can be viewed athttps://onedrive.live.com/?cid=4465d0a3c7ce0768&id=4465D0A3C7CE0768!431&ithint=video,mp4&authkey=!AK_lFCVCJZPNcf4

-The project that the students in Posadas shared with us can be viewed athttps://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=4465D0A3C7CE0768!720&ithint=file%2cpptx&app=PowerPoint&authkey=!AFEGttrg2FOhNqE

The international blogspot where you can view Lili Monk’s and Sharon Shelerud’s projects is available here.

Thank you,

Amy Bridgewater- Stalker

Abridge6@live.com

An Interview with Nancy Watson

Nancy H. Watson is a high school teacher at Lawton Chiles High School, in Tallahassee, FL. She is the Co-Chair of the AP Human Geography Development Committee. Nancy has been awarded the 2014 National Council for Geographic Education K-12 Distinguished Teaching Award in recognition of her excellence in teaching geography. Nancy teaches Pre AP World History to 9th graders and AP Human Geography through 12th grade. I am grateful to finally have the opportunity to talk with Nancy about her views on geography education.

Q: How did you get interested in geography?

A: “I taught world geography to middle school students and loved it. In 2004 I started teaching AP Human Geography with only 11 students.” Now Nancy has 114 AP Human Geography students and 43 Pre AP World History students. When Nancy taught AP Human Geography for the 1st time she wholeheartedly scoured the internet for resources. Many other teachers were generous and shared lesson ideas with her. Now she would like to pay it forward and help other new teachers. Her class website is open for all teachers to view at www.mrswatsonsclass.com. Nancy encourages exchange of lesson ideas.

Q: What do you think the importance of learning geography is for your students?

A: “We live in a global society. Too few students can identify countries around the world, much less understand the interactions between people and places around the world. I can’t believe that there isn’t more of an emphasis on geography in schools today, especially because of all the global conflicts, agreements between countries and the global economy.”

Q: Florida has geography standards as part of the Next Generation Sunshine State Standards, but does not require a single K-12 course in geography and doesn’t test students’ geographic knowledge in the new end of course exams. What implications does this have for students in Florida?

A: “If students are going to understand globalization and the contemporary world they need geography. Cultural geography encompasses the disciplines of world history, American history and economics. If FL tries to infuse geography into the other required social studies courses it gets lost. FL needs to make geography a priority and fund geographic education. We need a renewed interest and commitment to geographic education. Florida students especially need a foundation in geography because we have three large ports connected to the world economy and a large immigrant population.”

Q: What is your role as a member of the AP Human Geography development committee?

A: “The development committee reviews the course description making sure that it is current, useful to teachers, and provides them with resources. The course is dynamic and the course description has to be updated as current events evolve, borders change, and geographic boundaries shift. Committee members review potential exam questions and make sure that the question material relate to the course description. The development committee was instrumental in researching and identifying resources for the AP Human Geography Teacher Community when it was initially created. The development committee is involved in the AP Human Geography reading in Cincinnati. In addition, the committee provides support for teachers, giving workshops at the National Council for Geographic Education annual meeting, the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting and the National Council for the Social Studies annual meeting. Members of the committee are currently working on an updated Journal of Geography AP Human Geography special issue which will have in depth unit resources for AP Human Geography teachers.”

Q: What advice would you give to new AP Human Geography teachers in Florida?

A: “You don’t have to know everything to teach the class. You won’t know everything the 1st year you teach it. You will learn a lot and your students will learn a lot. Ask for help, use the resources on the College Board sponsored AP Human Geography Teacher Community. Don’t be afraid to use other AP teachers’ resources, just make sure you modify them and make them your own. Seek out local resources such as local cartographers and geographers. Don’t teach solely from the book. Read the course description and develop your lessons from that. Look at current events and use them in your lessons. Geography Education Scoop.it is an excellent source for current events”

Q: Any other comments?

A: “I am excited that FL has so many students enrolled in AP Human Geography. There were approximately 148,000 AP Human Geography exams given in the United States and 30,000 were from Florida.”

Teachers taking control of their own PD – The Edcamp Model

School districts around the country spend millions of dollars each year on professional development programs for their teachers. From classroom management to common core and assessment, most of these programs have a few things in common. The topics are decided upon by district administrators with little input from active teachers, they are often designed by organizations with no real connection to the school district, and they are incredibly expensive. Ask most teachers that attend these workshops and they will tell you that they are there for one of the following reasons; their principal is making them attend, they are getting paid to attend, or they are there for the continuing education points that all educators need for re-certification.

So where are teachers getting the authentic professional development they need to stay on top of current trends? A movement has emerged to address this need – it’s called Edcamp.

The Edcamp model was born several years ago to serve teachers in local communities around the world; providing free professional development, free from the vendor-dominated environment of many industry conferences, with session and topic decisions made by the teachers themselves. When a teacher arrives on the morning of Edcamp, they are met not by a pre-planned menu of sessions to choose from but rather an empty agenda board. The empty session slots will be filled by the attendees themselves, with sessions on topics that they wish to share. While this seems like the makings of a chaotic process, it actually runs rather smoothly. Best of all, it is professional development for teachers, by teachers. And compared to district-driven training, teachers attend on their own time, often traveling several hours to Edcamps outside of their home districts.

For a complete list of Edcamps taking place around the world, visithttp://edcamp.wikispaces.com/.

Article written by Stephen Veliz

Opportunties for Educators

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

2015-2016 Exemplar Program Applications - NOW AVAILABLE!

The 21st Century Learning Exemplar Program is designed to be a cornerstone for the next stage of the 21st century skills movement. For the past 10 years, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) has advocated for 21st century readiness for every student. Thousands of schools, communities, and thought leaders across the country have helped to define 21st century skills and promote their adoption. Now, they are ready to lead a coalition of educators and partners in identifying what 21st century educational practices look like and where they are being implemented successfully.

Through the Exemplar Program, P21 seeks to identify, document, promote, and celebrate examples of successful 21st century learning. This program provides educators and communities with a variety of examples to draw from, and offers policymakers and P21 State Partners local examples to help encourage their support.

All schools and districts based in the U.S. are eligible to apply. Selected applicants will be chosen for evaluative visits, which will be conducted before the end of the 2014-2015 school year. Following the visits, the evaluation team will make a determination regarding 21st Century Learning Exemplar status.

The deadline to apply is January 31, 2015.

More information and an application form can be found at

http://www.p21.org/exemplar-program-case-studies/about-the-program.

Partial Scholarships Available!

The July 1-11, 2015 Educator Academy in the Amazon Rainforest of Peru is a cross-curricular professional development workshop for K-12 formal and informal educators to learn and use:

21st Century Instruction: 5E Lesson Design ~ Inquiry-Based Exploration ~ STEM
Inquiry Protocols & Resources: Project Learning Tree ~ Cornell Lab of Ornithology ~ & More!
Global and Cultural Perspectives: Service Learning ~ Sustainability ~ Global Education

Join Al Stenstrup (Project Learning Tree), Lilly Briggs (Cornell Lab of Ornithology), Christa Dillabaugh (Amazon Rainforest Workshops), and Dr. David Pearson (Wildlife Travellers' Guide to Peru), and work side-by-side with scientists Dr. Steve Madigosky (Widener University), and Randy Morgan (Curator/Entomologist, Cincinnati Zoo) as you:

Participate in citizen science projects and inquiry-based field studies on a 1/4-mile Rainforest Canopy Walkway in one of the most biologically diverse environments on the planet.
Spend a day in an Amazon village as you explore the complexities of sustainability and the role of education in creating a sustainable future for Amazon children.
Work with fellow educators to explore strategies for using the Amazon as a vehicle for incorporating STEM education, inquiry-based learning, and sustainability science education into your classroom.

Project Learning Tree Certification, BirdSleuth resources, and 50 ASU PD hours are included. Academic credit and Machu Picchu extension are optional. Space is limited, so register early to secure your spot!

Deadline to apply for one of three $1,000 scholarships is March 1, 2015. Get all the details and download a syllabus and scholarship application at:http://www.amazonworkshops.com/educator-academy.html.

Grant Opportunity

American Friends of Russian Folklore invites middle and high school teachers to apply for the 2015 season of the Russian/American Educators' Exchange.

Participants travel to rural Russia to collect Russian folklore by filming holiday celebrations, recording local singers, interviewing villagers about traditional lore, and photographing local handicrafts. They experience Russian village life firsthand, living in a village house and eating the local food.

They also visit rural schools, where they make presentations about American folklore and meet with Russian teachers to discuss matters of mutual professional interest. Upon return, the American teachers create and share curriculum materials incorporating some elements of the Russian folklore they collected.

The three folklore expeditions are timed to coincide with important holidays of the Russian traditional calendar:

Expedition 1: Easter in Volgograd province, Danilov district. April 8-April 21, 2015
Expedition 2: Pentecost/Trinity Week in Smolensk province, Sevsk district. May 21-June 3, 2015
Expedition 3: Dormition Day traditions and first day of school traditions in Bryansk province. August 22 - September 4, 2015

Knowledge of Russian is useful, but not required. Translators will be provided. All educators who work with middle or high school students or curriculum are encouraged to apply. Preference will be given to teachers whose schools are in rural areas.

For details and application instructions, visit russianfolklorefriends.org or emailinfo@russianfolklorefriends.org. Registration for each trip will close 60 days before the trip start date.

Fall

Perspectives on Advanced Placement Human Geography and the Testing Process

The United States does not have a national examination system in which all students take the same grade level examinations at specific times in their educational progression from elementary to post-secondary school. The National Assessment of Educational Progress is administered to a representative random sample of 4th, 8th and 12th graders. The assessments at the three grades in school represent a sampling of what students know and are able to do relative to the U.S. National Content Standards in Geography. The only other assessment in geography that is administered to a large number of students in the United States is the Advanced Placement Human Geography (APHG) examination taken by students at the completion of the non-compulsory APHG course. While the examination is referenced specifically to the content of APHG, it provides the only yearly indicator of what students know and are able to do in geography at the high school level.

How the curriculum, the exam, and grading work

The AP Human Geography Exam is given in the middle of May each year. The construction of the test begins with curriculum development. The Test Development Committee (TDC) consists of four university professors and four experienced high school teachers from across the United States. The TDC is made up a Chief Reader who is always a university professor, a College Board Advisor who is usually a high school teacher, four committee members (two who are high school teachers and two who are university professors) and finally two Co-chairs (one of which is a university professor and one of which is a high school teacher).

The TDC is responsible for developing and redesigning “course curriculum, determining the general content and ability level of each exam, determining requirements for course syllabi, writing and reviewing exam questions.”1 The TDC defines the scope and objectives of the course, articulating what students should know and be able to demonstrate upon completion of the course.2 The TDC also reviews the college curriculum studies, research, and data analysis at representative colleges to ensure alignment of the AP Human Geography course and exam content with equivalent Introduction to Human Geography courses at the college level. Faculty members from leading colleges and universities in the United States validate the course2 curriculum and description to ensure that they align with college courses and that colleges and universities will continue to support credit for AP students who pass the exam.3

The TDC, university professors, and content experts in collaboration with assessment specialists at Educational Testing Services develop exam questions. The TDC meets twice a year to accept, reject and revise questions. They also check content accuracy and make sure questions align with the curriculum framework. Questions are piloted at select universities to assure reliability and validity.

On the AP Human Geography Exam, students have one hour to answer the 75 multiple-choice questions. There is no 10 minute warning on the multiple choice section, so to keep track of time, students should where a watch that does not beep, have an alarm, or that is not a smart-watch. “Multiple-choice questions focus on the students’ ability to demonstrate understanding of key concepts and knowledge across all areas of the course.”4 The multiple choice questions ask students to “define, explain, and apply geographic concepts and interpret geographic data.”5 No points are awarded for incorrect answers on multiple choice questions, but there is no penalty for answering them incorrectly. Therefore, students should attempt to answer all questions. Many questions are stimulus based, incorporating maps, charts and other geographic information that students must use in order to answer questions. There are no time warnings on the multiple choice portion of the test, so students should wear non-beeping watches that are not smart watches to keep track of time and their progress on the test. Several multiple-choice questions are reused year to year, functioning as anchor questions to compare overall scores and assure statistical reliability of the test from year to year. The second part of the test gives students 75 minutes to answer three Free Response Questions (FRQs). These questions are open ended essay questions which ask students to: “synthesize different topical areas, analyze and evaluate geographical concepts, supply appropriately selected and well-explained real-world examples to illustrate geographic concepts, interpret verbal descriptions, maps, graphs, photographs, and/or diagrams, and formulate responses in narrative form.”6 If a student attempts an answer but is incorrect, it counts as a zero. If a student makes no attempt to answer the FRQ, it is scored as a dash. A dash has a more negative impact on student scores. AP Exam final scores are a weighted combination of student scores on the multiple-choice and free-response sections. Exam questions are written to correlate with the course outline. Each question is written to elicit evidence of student mastery of a specific learning objective in the course outline.

The TDC develops a rubric for each FRQ they submit for the exam. After the exams are administered in May, they are cataloged, sorted, and arranged into folders to be disseminated 3 and scored at the Advanced Placement Reading. Question Leaders and Lead Table Leaders read a sample of student response scripts and fine-tune the TDC rubric. The Chief Reader, a university professor, is responsible for overseeing this process. The Chief Reader is also responsible for overseeing the reading and scoring of the APHG Exams every year (over 160,000 exams at Cincinnati, Ohio in 2015). The Chief Reader selects Readers and the Reading Leadership at the readings. At the reading, readers are given rigorous training about FRQ scoring standards. Training consists of instruction on how to “recognize criteria to meet each score point contained within the rubric, identify the correct score point to be applied based on prescribed criteria, and apply the scoring rubric consistently and accurately to a wide range of constructed responses.”7 There are a series of checks to make certain that students are accurately and consistently graded by readers. There is a Table Leader who has additional training and checks a table of approximately eight readers for scoring accuracy. There are Lead Table Leaders and Questions Leaders that continually check the accuracy of Table Leader scoring. Finally, the Chief Reader checks the accuracy of all readers and uses statistical analysis to make sure all readers are mark the students’ responses according to the criteria. Students receive a final score of 1-5. In 2014 11% of students scored a 5, 20% of students scored a 4, 21% of students scored 3, 18% of students scored a 2 and 30 % of students scored a 1.9Passing the AP Exam, “represents not just the chance to save on college tuition and graduate early from college but also frees up time in a student's college schedule, allowing a student to take more advanced courses, to double major, or to explore additional disciplines and opportunities.”10 Passing the AP Human Geography exam also helps students build a resume and get into a better school.

Click Here to read the full article.

Written by Amy Stalker, Fleming Island, FL

A Letter From Laurie Molina

Dear Geography Enthusiasts!

I hope your beginning of the school year has gotten off to a smooth start! I am writing this letter to share some exciting developments here in Florida as well as in D.C. for the National Geographic Society.

Let me start here at home. We have had a very busy summer and early fall getting ready to launch two new initiatives – the Florida K-12 GIS Initiative and the Florida version of the NGS Bioblitz (http://education.nationalgeographic.com/topics/bioblitz/). We are very excited to announce that the Florida Geographic Alliance will be available to assist teachers and students in developing their own GIS research projects, courses and professional development once they register for their ArcGIS online Organizational account. To help teachers make the transition to using GIS in their classroom, we are busy putting the finishing touches on an adapted GIS for non-majors course that will use ArcGIS online as the tool for completing the course. The intent is to provide teachers with the opportunity to complete the equivalent of an online college course to assist in getting them up to speed on the basics of GIS before they take on classroom projects of their own. We are also working diligently preparing a comprehensive Florida database of populations, environmental and basemap data for each of the 67 counties. We hope that this will make getting data that is ArcGIS happy not so cumbersome! We have also recruited a couple of excellent geography teachers to work with our programmers to create a number of sample projects that can be used in your classroom without diving too deep into the GIS world. They were created with GIS tools for you but are content driven not software driven. This way you can play with maps and data before you have had the time to really learn to use your GIS tools. Finally, we have started to put up GIS based geography inquiry questions and maps that you can use in your classroom based on current topics in the news. Our goal is to have at least two of these up each month on our Facebook page and the website. You should get information about the full K-12 GIS initiative during the winter holiday break but we wanted you to be aware that it is coming your way for a 2016 launch!

The Florida version of the NGS Bioblitz will also have a GIS component and will use INaturalist for collecting original data that can be mapped and analyzed using ArcGIS Online.

So what is a BioBlitz?

A BioBlitz is usually a 24-hour event in which individuals find and identify as many species as possible in a specific geographic location. Alliance events may take place in a national park, state park, local park, schoolyard, etc. We will be inviting you to suggest possible sites that your students may want to investigate in May of 2016. You will also receive information in the next several weeks about what funding and technical support is available for classes that would like to participate in a Bioblitz. This is going to be real geography in the field that everyone can participate in and we hope you do!

As far as Society news….I am sure most if not all of you have heard about the new partnership between NGS and 21st Century FOX. We don’t have all the details at this point and I am told that there will be a statement soon outlining the expanded partnership and what that means for the state Alliances. Gary Knell, President and CEO of National Geographic shared the following statement with us “The National Geographic Board of Trustees unanimously endorsed this new direction for the Society which will allow us to scale up and integrate our storytelling assets in this highly disrupted digital environment, and at the same time maintain the highest standards of quality editorial operations that are fully consistent with our heritage and our brand. We will now be truly able to fully leverage our global potential and reach broader audiences.”

All of the leadership at the Society has assured the Alliance Coordinators that this is an opportunity to increase awareness, research and funds for geographic education and we promise to forward information as it becomes available. We will continue to support our existing programs such as Geography Awareness Week and the Geography Bee as we have in the past and look forward to hearing about new opportunities for Florida and the rest of the National Network!

My final comment is to remind all of you that Geography Awareness Week (GAW) will be coming up very soon and this year’s theme revolves around mapping so there will be some fun and innovative ways to get your students involved in GAW this year. Start thinking of ways that you can promote GAW the week of November 15-21, 2016 and do let us know if you have an idea that you may need assistance with. We have prizes for students, activities and teacher resources that will be available the first week in November so please let us know what you need to help celebrate our Annual event!

Laurie Molina, Ph.D.

Florida Geographic Alliance Coordinator

Free Registration for State Geography Bee

Free Registration for Schools Participating in the National Geographic Florida State Geography Bee

The State Geography Bee for Florida will be held on Friday April 1 at Jacksonville University. One hundred of the state’s brightest young geographers will compete for the state championship and a trip to Washington DC to represent Florida in the national competition hosted by journalist Soledad O’Brien.

Information about the State Geography Bee for Florida can be found at official website:

https://sites.google.com/site/floridastatebee/

Early bird registration starts at $100 per school. (The registration fee is $120 after December 18, 2015). Registration closes on January 18, 2016.

Any Florida school that has never participated in the Geographic Bee or has not participated in the past 3 years can be reimbursed for the $100 registration fee by the Florida Geographic Alliance.

If your school is interested in participating and taking advantage of this offer, please contact Alex Mislevy (amislev@jacksonville.edu or 610-334-2638).

The Bee is one of the premier academic events in the country, and it is an excellent opportunity for students to interact in an educational and fun activity! We hope you will consider it.

Information provided by Ray Oldakowski

Opportunities for Educators

Upcoming NCGE Webinar

Teaching and Learning with Geocaching: Outdoor High Tech Treasure Hunts

Join geographer and past NCGE Joseph Kerski for an NCGE webinar WEDNESDAY October 21st. https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6882187795231812865

Topic: GEOCACHING!

Will be loads of fun and full of practicality.

Teaching and Learning with Geocaching: Outdoor High Tech Treasure Hunts Wed 21 Oct 2015 8:00 PM ET / 7:00 PM CT / 6:00 PM MT / 5:00 PM PT

Join as we dig into the world of what is still the world’s most popular geo-related outdoor activity, geocaching. Beyond its recreational appeal, geocaching can be used to effectively teach spatial thinking, build skills in geotechnologies, and incorporate STEM into geography, all within an engaging field-based framework. Can you teach with geocaching, even on your own school or university campus, and even indoors? Find out why and how during this interactive and engaging webinar.

Educational Resources for He Named Me Malala

In an effort to inform students about the challenges many of their peers around the world face in gaining access to education, the Students Stand With Malala campaign is offering public middle and high school classes fully funded field trips to see He Named Me Malala in nearby theaters starting this month. Public school teachers who teach 7th-12th grades can register and request their field trips on the DonorsChoose website. (One teacher can sign up for an entire school!) National Geographic created educational resources to supplement the film, including classroom guides and maps of the region. Check them out athttp://education.nationalgeographic.com/malala/.