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Making calgeography.org a One-stop Shop for Your Geography Education Needs

At the CGA, our goal is to help build geo-literate citizens who care about the planet’s people, places and environments, and who feel empowered to strive for a more sustainable and equitable world. Teachers, informal educators, parents, students, policy-makers, and the media are all partners in helping us achieve this goal, and the Alliance website is a vehicle for educating, activating, coordinating, and supporting those partners. With this understanding, our team at SDSU, with input from CGA members, has completely revamped the site and is continuing to build out its utility. While the site is changing weekly and should present more value to all audiences as we continue our work, I am going to take this opportunity to give you a quick overview of what you can find there and how you can help us build a better online resource. From the welcome page on, we want the site to support our collective mission.

Teachers (and by extension their students) are our primary audience, and that is reflected in the content we have put online. Under the RESOURCES tab on our main menu, you will find three categories:

CALIFORNIA ATLAS: Our excellent print atlas, California: A Changing State, is available on the site as individual pdf files. You can print pages as needed for student work or project the maps for instruction. The atlas is aligned with fourth grade curriculum and has accompanying lessons for that grade, but it can be a valuable resource at many different grade levels and across a variety of subjects. In addition to the individual maps, the atlas contains great info about how to understand and use maps. If you dig deep into this section (or link directly from the menu on the left margin of the site), you will find “Atlas 2.0” – our working title for a suite of exciting new interactive resources. We have created several web maps and StoryMaps based on the topics covered in the print atlas but incorporating greatly expanded information in a format that allows teachers and students to explore important aspects of California’s history and environment through integrated maps, texts, and images. These are early prototypes, and we will continue to develop them with the help of some talented graduate students at SDSU and the input of teachers. Tell us what you think, suggest additions, or get online with Esri at http://storymaps.arcgis.com/en/ to see many more examples and experiment with making your own StoryMaps. Then share your work.

CONTRIBUTED LESSONS: This is a list of geography lessons, sorted by grade level, that have been created by CGA Teacher Consultants and other teachers who have attended past workshops. We would like to be able to make this list more valuable by adding new model lesson plans and including some info with each lesson plan about what teachers find useful about each lesson plan (kind of user reviews, as we have all become accustomed to online). So send us your best lesson plans, tell us what you think about the ones that are online now, and help us build a better resource.

ONLINE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES AND MULTIMEDIA CONTENT: One of our concepts for creating a valuable one-stop shopping experience for geo-educators of all types is to be a curator to help people access the best of literally thousands of amazing resources that already exist online. Again, we are very open to reviews and recommendations, but you will find links to sites with lesson plans and online tools, and you will also find links to a lot of short videos that could be used to introduce students to a topic or stimulate critical discussion. For example, The Economist magazine puts out very informative “videographics” on topics such as global migration flows (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcoOENLfpUI), and series of videos created by independent filmmakers such as one entitled Gas Rush explores the boom in natural gas and fracking from a variety of perspectives and features interviews with real people working in or affected by the industry (http://www.gasrushstories.com/grs/Stories.html).

There is also some useful information for educators under the ABOUT tab on the main menu, including:

ABOUT THE CGA: This gives a brief history of the organization. We should all be proud of being the first alliance in the country and one of the places where the movement was first imagined and nurtured.

GEO-LITERACY AND GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION: This page includes texts and links to videos explaining exactly what geography is and why it is vitally important. Geo-literacy is a term that is used within the geography education community to underscore the central importance of geographic knowledge and spatial thinking. We see it as a core competence for the students of today and the citizens of the future. On this page you will also find links to the California content standards and curriculum framework for history and social studies, common core state standards (Did you know there are free iPhone/iPad and Android apps with the Common Core standards?), and the Next Generation Science Standards. Those are the crucial policies for teachers, but the CGA is also looking beyond what is in place to think of what geography education could and should look like, and you can get some ideas about that from following links to A Road Map for 21st Century Geography Education or Geography for Life.

GEOGRAPHY MAJORS AND CAREERS: When the SDSU leadership team decided to take on hosting the CGA, we set a goal to increase the number of incoming college students who declare geography as a major. Unfortunately, this is a rare occurrence, and we think it would be good for our economy, our communities, and our students’ futures if more chose to study geography and prepare themselves for careers as geographers or in many other professions where geographic knowledge and skills are valued. Toward that end, we have included information about why a student might choose geography as a major and where in the US a student could pursue an education in geography. We also link to the site of the Association of American Geographers that includes profiles of professional geographers. And while you are on the site, check out one of our latest blog posts that confirms that geographers’ sensibilities and skills are prized in the workplace and jobs for people with the technical ability to work with geographic information are well-paid and more numerous than job-seekers with the required training. This message needs to get out to our high school students. Geography is relevant, interesting, integrative, and a pathway to a great career.

Thanks for reading! I hope you will visit calgeography.sdsu.edu again and again because it is a valuable resource. And please contribute your own content or suggestions to make it the best possible reflection of the important work we are all doing in geography education.

Cheers,

Tom Herman, CGA Director
therman@mail.sdsu.edu

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Geography in the Workforce: Good News to Share (from the President of the American Geographical Society)

If ever there was any question that geography is foremost among professions, the last shred of doubt has been dispelled by reports on employment trends over the past decade. The U. S. Department of Labor, The Guardian newspaper, MSN.com, Money Magazine, and PayScale.com stated our case better than we geographers have. Let’s start with the most recent and work backward in time. MSN.com in its Money section on May 5, 2014 covered “America’s most and least common jobs.” Geography was among the least common, and I’ll talk about that aspect later, but there was good news too: “Still, some of these uncommon jobs do have growth potential and include relatively high salaries.” The data cited by MSN.com came from the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS): “The average geographer earned more than $75,000 annually as of 2013.” What’s more, “The BLS forecasts that these jobs will grow by 29 percent…between 2012 and 2022.”

On April 22, 2012, Debra Auerbach of CareerBuilder.com wrote about “10 jobs with above average salaries.” Then at $74,170, geographers were second highest, and all jobs on the list were projected to grow more than 29 percent over the subsequent decade. Auerbach explained, “Geographers study the earth and its land, features and inhabitants. They also examine political and cultural structures as they relate to geography. This is a good occupation for lovers of travel, as geographers often travel to conduct fieldwork.”

In 2010, The Guardian published a poll showing that geography graduates had the very lowest unemployment rate of all disciplines in the United Kingdom (source). Among the previous year’s graduates, 7.4 % of geographers were unemployed in January 2010, compared to 16.3 % of information technology (IT) graduates. “What makes…geography grads the most employable?” Alison White asked, and the answer came from Nick Keeley, director of the Careers Service at Newcastle University: “Studying geography arms graduates with a mix of skills employers want to see: Geography students generally do well in terms of their relatively low unemployment rates. You could attribute this to the fact that the degree helps develop a whole range of employability skills, including numeracy, teamwork through regular field trips, analytical skills in the lab, and a certain technical savviness through using various specialist computing applications. Also, the subject area in itself cultivates a world view and a certain cultural sensitivity. These all potentially help a geographer to stand out in the labor market.”

For many years the U.S. Department of Labor has recognized geospatial technology as one of the three top growth industries today, alongside nanotechnology and biotechnology. “Over 500,000 professionals in fields ranging from environmental engineering to retail trade analysis are asked to use GIS in their jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics show that surveyors, cartographers, and photogrammetrists (a subset of GIS occupations) are experiencing faster than average employment growth – anticipating growth at 19 percent between 2008 and 2018” (source).

Money Magazine and PayScale.com placed “geographic information system analyst” in its list of the “Top 100 Best Jobs in America” in 2010. The 2011 list of the “Best Jobs in Fast-Growth Fields” included various careers that utilize GIS.

Why, you may ask, with all these striking figures high salaries, rapid growth, low unemployment, aren’t students beating down the doors to get into our classes? Why are geography departments not booming in every university in the country? Why, in fact, are geography departments closing at a disturbing rate? Why do parents routinely ask, when their sons and daughters announce they want to study geography, “How on earth will you make a living?” Most puzzling of all, why are departments changing their names to attract students concerned about employment? The answer is pure, unadulterated ignorance among the U. S. public. Geography is one of the least common professions because few employers know to call geographers “geographers.” Few know to advertise for a geographer when that’s what they need to hire. Our students, however, find high salary jobs, seldom called “geography,” because we give them skills and attitudes that warrant high pay.

Clearly, we geographers aren’t making our case as convincingly as we could and should. We aren’t informing students of the disciplines true potential of employment. We aren’t informing employers that there are plenty more good prospects like the ones they have already hired, if only they will support our programs and seek our graduates.

The American Geographical Society will continue to fight to get this message out: Geography is the key, not only to understanding, but also to success.

Note: From the August 2014 newsletter of the AGS.

Educational Practice

Fostering Geo-Literacy In the English Classroom

How OLP students, in partnership with the California Geographic Alliance, became global citizens

By Laura Rodriguez and Katie Turner

As 10th grade English teachers at the all girls high school, the Academy of Our Lady of Peace (OLP) in San Diego, this year’s World Literature class was an exciting new venture in education for us. Our core curriculum-aligned, backward design gave us an opportunity to think about the overall course, including what texts we could use and what skills we needed our students to develop. More central and critical questions then arose: what learning acquisition do we really want our students to achieve from literature around the world? What do we want our students to know about themselves and their own abilities? With these guiding and essential questions, we were able to design a very unique set of learning opportunities in project-based learning, edu-tech applications, and, most profoundly, the cross-curricular integration of geo-literacy. In earlier newsletters, the CGA has already described aspects of our collaboration in more detail. In this issue, we will speak more directly to our curriculum design.

In Class

We designed our World Literature curriculum around the idea of ‘the hero’ and ‘the journey.’ Our fall semester was dedicated to the antihero (Fahrenheit 451), the tragic hero (Oedipus Rex), the romantic hero (Arthurian quest narratives and the epic medium), and the hero as pilgrim (Dante’s Inferno). While it established credibility in a traditional approach to world literature, it incidentally laid groundwork for the second semester: the female hero and her journey in global literature.

During our spring semester, our students read and viewed texts and films about the rise of the modern woman in society (A Doll’s House, Norway), the struggles of gender traditions and expectations in a 20th Century setting (Nervous Conditions, Zimbabwe), and the role of strict political and fundamentalist religion on these expectations (Persepolis, Iran and Water, India). In doing so, we prepared them for what they would learn, in a project-based context, emphasizing geo-literacy.

Using Social Media

One of the most innovative ways in which our students expanded their study of the female hero in literature was through the integration of Pinterest as a learning tool. Students chose symbolic and metaphorical images to pin on their boards, simultaneously utilizing text to foster innovative approaches to interpretation, composition, and critical thinking.  The two ongoing Pinterest assignments included the creation of a superhero board and a country board.

For their Pinterest country board, each student was given one country to follow for the entire semester.  We assigned most students to the 50 poorest countries in the world (cross-referenced by the countries with the most egregious disparities in female literacy rates), with the objective of motivating their deeper understanding of a real place with real people. What they discovered was that heroes exist almost everywhere we look! For example, a student assigned to the Democratic Republic of the Congo became interested in the DRC’s history.  She independently researched Leopold’s rule, the consequences of Lumumba’s death, and the ripple effect created by Mobutu’s dictatorship.  She then began to use the work of journalists like Nicholas Kristof to learn about the humanitarian efforts made in the DRC today.  She, just one of 120 sophomores, independently developed an intrinsically motivated inquiry about the past wrongs and the present efforts to bring education, human rights, and peace to that region.

Another example of self-motivated discovery came from a student who lives in Mexico and travels to OLP across the international border every day.  She was assigned a country in Central Asia about which she knew nothing.  She was initially apprehensive because she bears daily witness to poverty and a lack of services in her own city of Tijuana – why study a faraway place when the problem confronts you everyday? Through her own determination and curiosity, she developed a relationship with a distant culture, language, and set of beliefs only to better understandthe complexity of issues in her own hometown. Teenagers often feel helpless when confronted by global problems, but this geo-literacy project gave them a sense of independent choice that ultimately led to activism in San Diego and Northern Baja; a deeper understanding of Kyrgyzstan offered the tools she needs to understand her community and culture.

For their superhero board on Pinterest, each student developed an alter ego who is not limited to this place or time.  Throughout the semester the development of personal superheroes allowed for very flexible and expandable learning modalities.  For example, one week we engaged in a discussion about gender-based wage disparity that peaked their interest in the number of women currently holding leadership positions around the world; inspired by the conversation in class, the girls went home, researched current statistics, and added findings to their country boards based on the types of justice issues they care about most. The culmination of this superhero “alter ego” became a collaborative music video project in which students combined the traits of their own superheroes into a 21st Century woman.

 Beyond the Classroom

We were awarded a very unique opportunity this year when the California Geographic Alliance chose OLP as a model for geo-literacy in the English classroom. In sending our 10th grade Pilots on an historical, political, geographic, and personal journey through the study of language and literature, our students learned so much about how their lives are integrally connected to the lives of girls around the world. Beyond this, our students were presented with an opportunity to experience a college-level conference, watch a CGA-sponsored screening of Girl Rising, andlisten to and engage with three exciting guest speakers. Along with this symposium, the CGA sponsored an essay contest among the World Literature students, the results of which were published in last month’s newsletter.

This was an amazing and collaborative experience for us as teachers, and we ultimately we attained the goals we built into the 10th grade curriculum; we observed our students become creative, independent, critical thinkers and writers, while analyzing texts that challenge them with real world situations and issues. By expanding our curriculum to include a focus on specific geographical issues, students were able to complement literary texts with real world knowledge on important social and political issues. In doing so, our students have been truly inspired to strive for change. Or in the words of essay winner, Mariana Fernandez, they are inspired to “create commotion,” or small ripples of change as they work to make the world a better place.

 

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From Edutopia: Students Map Real-World Issues with (Free) Geospatial Tools

Suzie Boss, journalist and project-based learning advocate, published an article on Edutopia yesterday (7/28/14) underscoring the value of the free access to ARC-GIS Online to K-12 educators. I recommend taking the time to read it, but here is a snippet: “Being able to analyze data and present information visually are important skills, whether you are investigating global issues or trying to solve problems in your backyard. Adding GIS to the project-based learning toolkit opens all kinds of opportunities for rich inquiry.”

What was exciting to me about this article is that it was shared with me by an educational technology specialist immediately following a meeting I had with her regarding a mapping project for third graders. The CGA is working with the San Diego History Center and the School in the (Balboa) Park program to develop a week-long map skills module during which students will learn to read and interpret maps and also will get experience producing their own maps using digital technology.

Educational Practice

World Literature and Geo-literacy Student Essay Contest

As a follow up to last month’s newsletter, we’re very pleased to share the award-winning student essay written by Mariana Fernandez, a sophomore in the World Literature program at the Academy of Our Lady of Peace in San Diego. The prompt for Mariana’s essay was: How does our study of girls around the world help us better understand the true meaning of the word hero? Next month, teachers Katie Turner and Laura Rodriguez will share their World Literature curriculum and describe how they incorporated geo-literacy into their classrooms. Congratulations again to Mariana Fernandez for her inspiring essay!

Kate Swanson, Mariana Fernandez and Katie Turner at the Academy of Our Lady of Peace Sophomore Award Ceremony in May 2014
Kate Swanson, Mariana Fernandez and Katie Turner at the Academy of Our Lady of Peace Sophomore Award Ceremony in May 2014

Change the World Literature

by Mariana Fernandez

On the first day of sophomore year, I walked into my World Literature classroom with the mindset of a girl who just wanted an A in the class in order to have a solid application for college. I came in and mentally prepared myself for the mindless note taking and quizzes about plot and character that I would probably have to endure. I sat down and looked up at the front of the room as I slumped in my seat.  Right there, in the middle of the whiteboard, were the words “change the world literature”. Back then, I had no clue that those words were true and that I would walk out of the classroom with a completely different perspective about the world. I did not realize that this would be one of the classes I can say changed my life. This year, I am leaving World Literature as a girl who will do all she can to change the world.

Throughout the year, I was taught to understand different characters, from around the world that came to life for me as a result of each author’s harmonious placement of words on paper. I was also given an opportunity to use that knowledge and understanding of heroic characters to develop my own idea of a hero, who I named Anna. To summarize, I was given the opportunity to actually use the things I learned in class in order to form the girl who will walk out of my high school in two years, ready to change the world.

If I had to choose a few characters who, through literature, changed my perspective about the world, they would include Guy Montag, created by Ray Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451, Liesel Meminger, given life by Marcus Zusak in The Book Thief, and Marji, formed from personal memory by Marjane Satrapi in Persepolis: The Story of A Childhood.  Montag lives in an American dystopian society that is opposed to any sort of intellect; Liesel is a girl living in Nazi Germany, a time when certain books were banned and questioning the Nazi’s methods was dangerous; Marji lives in Iran, during the time of the Islamic Revolution. Similar to Montag and Liesel, Marji’s curiosity and will to learn is suppressed by seemingly irrepressible forces. When placed apart these are just ordinary heroes who can only teach a girl like me so much. In other words, I can discover as much by just focussing on one of these heroes as I would if I tried to learn about World War II using only my country’s perspective. However, when I place them together, I am able to gain a real understanding of what it actually means to be a hero. I understood this definition of heroism when I took a step back and looked at the big picture: three characters who come from completely different parts of the world become heroes against all social, political, and cultural odds. These characters have different cultures, which makes them approach their challenges differently, but the fact that three different paths lead to the same destination, shows that a certain language or the color of one’s skin isn’t what makes someone a hero. A person becomes a hero because of the courage she has to take a step onto the rocky path that leads to change.

One of the biggest struggles shared by each hero is finding her voice amongst a society that is constantly trying to quiet her. They have trouble accepting that no one is going to speak up and say that what their society is doing is wrong.  However, in the end all of these ordinary people somehow find the courage they need to act out against injustices. In The Book Thief, Liesel has “twenty seconds of insane courage” as Benjamin Mee said in We Bought a Zoo, directed by Cameron Crowe.  She literally crosses her own threshold and grabs a book from the fiery flames of a famous Nazi book burning, in order to learn to read. In Persepolis, Marji also musters up this same courage when she raises her hand in class to contradict the unfair teacher, and fundamentalist practices as a whole. She stands out among the other students who simply agree with the status quo, like mindless drones who fear thinking a single independent thought (Satrapi 144). In Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag does not have super strength, or any other superpower like Superman. Instead, he is an average person who chooses to become an outlaw instead of living in a place where education is banned. I admire the courage he must have in order to do what is right, even when he knows that the consequences will be horrible.

All of these characters change the common definition of the word hero. They are not magical beings with preposterous powers; none of their actions result in a huge revolution; but, in my opinion, what makes them heroes is the fact that they have that insane courage to question what they are led to believe and to take leaps of faith. This new idea about what it means to be a hero inspired the creation of Anna, my own hero, who I developed throughout the semester as a class Pinterest project on geo-literacy.

Anna is the result of every character, every conflict, every idea (even every homework assignment!) I encountered during World Literature. She is the person who I hope I will become in the future. Anna is a girl who is not afraid to speak out against injustices that occur in her society. Injustices such as bullying occur all around her. Of course, stopping the bullies would mean that Anna may not be “popular” or well-liked. However she does not fear the persecution that will follow her attempts to be true to herself and true to her beliefs. The fact that she doesn’t care about the consequences of choosing what is just over what is wrong is what makes her a superhero and motivates me to become a hero in my own society. In a letter written to high schoolers just like me, e.e. cummings once said, “to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, day and night, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.” My superhero alter ego may not have saved a million lives yet, but she is a hero because she has the courage to be herself.

After learning about Marji in Iran, Montag from a dystopian future in the United States, and Liesel in Nazi Germany, it is now my turn to adapt their courage and bring Anna to life. I used to think that changing the world meant creating a huge revolution that completely erases the current structure, much like the systems that try to stop people like Marji, Montag, and Liesel from growing.  I now know that all I need to do to change the world is create a tiny ripple that will change at least one life. This tiny change causes people to question the rules and realize when there is something wrong. Basically, in order to be a hero, I must find the courage to create commotion. This commotion will probably result in people being perplexed that I dared to question the “norm”, because after commotion, people try to fix things and go back to “normal” life. My commotion will help them realize there are things that need fixing for the better. The heroes I met, not only from Germany or Iran, but from Nepal, India, Peru, Sierra Leone, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan as well, cause a commotion in me which inspires me to create waves. I have decided to create commotion, and though I may not be the one who changes the whole world, I will be a part of those who inspire this change.

 

Works Cited

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. Evanston: McDougal Littell, 1998. Print.

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. New York, NY: Pantheon, 2003. Print.

Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Print.

 

 

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Teacher Professional Development Workshop – California Atlas – Placer County Office of Ed. – Wed., July 16

As a result of generous support from the Bechtel Foundation, the CGA is offering professional development workshops for 4th grade teachers focused on our state atlas, California: A Changing State.

Our latest workshop to be announced will be held in Auburn at the Placer County Office of Education, from 8 am to 4 pm on Wednesday, July 16. These workshops are free for any fourth grade teacher, and each participant receives a set of 18 atlases for classroom use, activities and lesson plans to get their students using the atlases, and a selection of other books and materials, all valued at over $250. Space is limited, so reserve your spot now by visiting the Professional Development page.

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Exciting News from Esri – Making GIS Accessible to K-12 Educators

It was announced yesterday at the White House that Esri will provide free ArcGIS Online subscriptions for all K-12 schools (instructional use) in the United States as part of the White House’s ConnectED initiative. More information is available here.

Resources to help schools get started with ArcGIS Online are available at http://edcommunity.esri.com/connected.

In conjunction with this initiative, we encourage GIS professionals to become GeoMentors who volunteer to help schools set up their ArcGIS Online account, provide data for the local community, and provide local expertise. More information about the GeoMentor program is at http://www.geomentor.org.

ArcGIS Online subscriptions for K-12 schools include 500 named users. The July release of ArcGIS Online will include a new custom role (“Student”) and new account administration tools for managing student accounts.

Please contact connectEDschools@esri.com with questions.

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Geo-literacy through World Literature

by Kate Swanson

Kenton Hundley and OLP student perform participatory spoken word poetry together

Your new CGA leadership team has been working hard to build exciting and innovative collaborations to help promote geography education in California’s schools. We recently had an opportunity to collaborate with the Academy of Our Lady of Peace (OLP), a high school that has been teaching girls in San Diego since 1882. Working with English teachers Katie Turner and Laura Rodriguez, we helped develop an exciting sophomore World Literature curriculum that focused on geo-literacy and girls’ global education and empowerment.

Today I’m going to give an overview of this collaboration. In next month’s newsletter, you’ll hear from one of the school’s World Literature students as she gives her thoughts on how the curriculum fostered her desire to change the world for the better! The following month, we’ll hear from teachers Katie and Laura as they describe their World Literature curriculum in more detail. We hope their curriculum might serve as a model for how to incorporate geography education into the classroom in engaging ways.

World literature, states Alexander Solzhenitsyn, is “the one great heart that beats for the cares and misfortunes of our world, even though each corner sees and experiences them in a different way.” This quote, taken from the OLP World Literature syllabus, captures a major goal of the curriculum – to help girls step outside of their comfort zones in order to help them understand global social and environmental issues through a different lens. The books they read and the films they watched spanned Norway (Ibsen’s A Doll’s House), Zimbabwe (Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions), Iran (Satrapi’s Persepoli), India (Mehta’s Water), and New Zealand (Caro’s Whale Rider). Each student in the class was also assigned a country to profile. Their task was to explore national level geography, culture, politics, and economics in order to explore factors affecting women’s and girls’ literacy levels in each of their assigned countries.

To help further their understanding of girls’ struggles around the world, the CGA purchased and screened the film Girl Rising. This film shares girls’ struggles through powerful story telling. By focusing on stories from Cambodia, Haiti, Nepal, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Peru, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, it demonstrates how educating girls can have formidable impacts across families, communities, nations, and the world (http://girlrising.com/).

We then helped bring three keynote speakers to create a speaker symposium for the 120 girls enrolled in the World Literature program. All of the speakers were invited to share their own personal journeys, as well as their work. The first speaker was yours truly. I shared my story on how I became a geographer, and also spoke about some of my work with migrant youth. We then invited Kenton Hundley, an award-winning spoken word poet, who works at a safe house for unaccompanied minors. Kenton blew the girls away by sharing his powerful poetry about the Latin American youth who risk their lives to journey to America. Our final speaker was Professor Doreen Mattingly an outstanding geographer and feminist scholar who is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Women’s Studies at San Diego State University. Professor Mattingly’s words inspired the girls to pursue their goals and strive to make the world a better place.

Teacher Laura Rodriguez (far left), Dr. Doreen Mattingly (back row center), teacher Katie Turner (far right) and OLP sophomore students

Finally, we sponsored a geo-literacy essay contest. The prompt was: How does our study of girls around the world help us better understand the true meaning of the world hero? There were many excellent essays (we had 7 honorable mentions!), demonstrating the power of this curriculum to inspire. The winning essay, written by Mariana Fernandez, will be featured in next month’s newsletter. We presented the award to Mariana at a large sophomore awards ceremony attended by students, parents and teachers. Congratulations, Mariana! I hope you all enjoy her excellent essay next month.

For teachers out there who are incorporating geography into their classrooms in innovative ways, we encourage you to get in touch with us. We hope to profile the work of other teachers on our website (www.calgeography.sdsu.edu) and in this newsletter. By doing so, we can help spread geo-literacy around the state!

Kate Swanson (far left), Kenton Hundley (front center), Katie Turner (far right) and OLP students
Kate Swanson (far left), Kenton Hundley (front center), Katie Turner (far right) and OLP students
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Understanding the Crisis in the Ukraine: a Lesson Aligned to Common Core and California History-Social Studies Standards

The full lesson is found here: http://www.crf-usa.org/online-lessons-index/the-crisis-in-ukraine

Overview

This lesson examines the crisis in Ukraine. First, students hold a brief discussion on what they think is the most important news story going on. Then they read and discuss a background piece on the crisis in Ukraine. Next, in small groups, they role play international lawyers and analyze Ukraine’s 1994 Budapest Memorandum, an agreement among Ukraine, Russia, the U.S., and the U.K.

Objectives

Students will be able to:

    > Explain why the protests in Ukraine took place.
    > Describe the cultural divisions in Ukraine.
    > Analyze and answer text-dependent questions on a primary document, citing evidence from the text (Ukraine’s Budapest Memorandum).

Standards Addressed

Common Core Standard RH.11–12.1: Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole.

National High School Civics Standard 22: Understands how the world is organized politically into nation states, how nation states interact with one another, and issues surrounding U.S. foreign policy. (1) Understands the significance of principal foreign policies and events in the United States’ relations with the world (e.g., Monroe Doctrine, World Wars I and II, formation of the United Nations, Marshall Plan, NATO, Korean and Vietnam Wars, end of the Cold War). (12) Knows some important bilateral and multilateral agreements to which the United States is signatory (e.g., NAFTA, Helsinki Accord, Antarctic Treaty, Most Favored Nation Agreements).

California History Social Science Standard 11.9: Students analyze U.S. foreign policy since World War II.

National High School U.S. History Standard 30: Understands developments in foreign policy ….

California History–Social Science Standard 6.4: Students analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the early civilizations of Ancient Greece. (1) Discuss the connections between geography and the development of city states in the region of the Aegean Sea, including patterns of trade and commerce among Greek city states and within the wider Mediterranean region. (2) Trace the transition from tyranny and oligarchy to early democratic forms of government and back to dictatorship in ancient Greece, including the significance of the invention of the idea of citizenship (e.g., from Pericles’ Funeral Oration).

National World History Standard 8: Understands how Aegean civilization emerged and how interrelations developed among peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean and Southwest Asia from 600 to 200 BCE. (1) Understands the political framework of Athenian society (e.g., the influence of Athenian political ideals on public life; major changes made to the Athenian political organization between the initial monarchy and the governments of Solon and Cleisthenes . . . ).

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Report from BioBlitz 2014 at Golden Gate National Parks

BioBlitz2014

By Roni Jones

#BioBlitz2014 at Golden Gate National Parks in San Francisco was an exhilarating and inspiring event for students, educators, scientists, and citizens. National Geographic Education staff started the week by spending Tuesday, March 25 at John Muir Middle School in Corcoran, California, just south of Fresno, to conduct a Schoolyard BioBlitz with 240 7th grade students. Over three hours, students visited three different sites in town and on campus to observe birds, insects, animals, and plants. JMMS is a Verizon Innovative Learning School and an Apple Distinguished School, and has implemented a 1:1 iPad ratio for students and teachers. With this technology, students were able to utilize the iNaturalist app to identify and document different species throughout the day. Students were most excited to observe owl pellets containing animal bones, feathers, and other indigestible matter. Information and video collected during the Schoolyard BioBlitz will ultimately be available for educators so they, too, can organize and conduct their own local species inventories.

At noon on Friday, March 25, BioBlitz 2014 was officially launched, although students and scientists had started collected data early that morning. The staff at Golden Gate National Parks, as well as Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and the Presidio Trust, coordinated hundreds of naturalists, docents, birdwatchers, and other volunteers to work with more than 3,000 students throughout the day. Students were scattered throughout the Bay Area from San Mateo to the Marin Headlands to conduct inventories about what types of bird, reptile, mammal, plant and insect species were observed. It was amazing to see so many students actively involved in field science and engaged so fully with their local environment. The weather was spectacular and the students were also able to enjoy a large festival of hands-on activities at Crissy Field, in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The public and scientific inventories continued into Friday night and Saturday morning, even though the weather turned stormy and wet. Volunteers returned to the field throughout the 24-hour period to inventory tide pools and identify nocturnal creatures. The first-ever inventory of the canopy of the redwood forest in Muir Woods was conducted. In total, 300 scientists, 3,000 students, and over 5,000 volunteers took part in this unique and exciting event.

Next year, #BioBlitz2015 will take place at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, so make your vacation plans now to participate!