Yesterday I shared details of our recent Public Engagement Coordinator (PEC) training at the NCGE conference. This morning I'm happy to report that one of our PECs has done his homework! Stephen Veliz, our industrious PEC from Florida, included this post about Geography Awareness Week on his blog "Teaching in Tallahassee"; which focuses on integrating Web 2.0 technologies across the curriculum:
Geography Awareness Week is coming up from November 16-22, and it has never been needed more than now.
Florida, like most of the country, has aggressively embraced civics education. Now let me assure you, I am an advocate of enhanced civics education. Watch any of the late-night man on the street clips and it becomes painfully clear that Americans are woefully our of touch with the workings and institutions of their country. So I am excited about the opportunity to help correct this tragedy of American education.
But there is another tragedy that is getting less attention - that of the geographic illiteracy that has swept across our nation over the past several decades. Consider the 2006 Roper study on geographic literacy:
Read the rest of the article at "Teaching in Tallahassee."
Great work Stephen! An apple for the teacher :-)
Image courtesy www.district87.org
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Hi Steve!
Thanks for sharing your class activity with our audience. I love the idea of adding to the complexity of the map puzzle by challenging students to collaborate silently. It shows how teachers can easily adapt such projects for varying age and skill levels. And great pictures, too!
Posted by: Sarah Jane | October 27, 2008 at 08:44 AM
The SPSL School of Omaha seventh grade geography classes just finished a unit on Canada. Mr. McCarville gave them about 66 map sections to put together to form a classroom map of Canada. They had to visualize the land and work together without talking. Quite a challenge! In November, they will be given over 100 map sections to form all of North America which will include the U.S.A., Mexico and Central America in the St. Pius Parish Center. The materials were part of the Geography Action Week toolkit Mr. McCarille received in Dearborn. Geography can be fun!
A slideshow of the activity can be found at:
http://spsl.net/7th_Grade/Mapping_Activity.html
Posted by: Steve McCarville (Nebraska PEC-MWW) | October 24, 2008 at 06:13 PM