NCRGE Sessions at 2016 AAG Annual Meeting

Wednesday, March 30

Panel Session 2542: International Geography Organizations: Priorities and Initiatives for Research and Education

3:20 PM – 5:00 PM in Union Square 15, Hilton Hotel, 4th Floor

This panel will feature representatives from international geography organizations and societies. They will discuss recent and ongoing organizational projects and programs for geography education and research. A goal of the discussion will be to identify opportunities for collaboration among the organizations.

Thursday, March 31

GeoCapabilities Sessions

The GeoCapabilities project is sponsoring a full day of sessions at the 2016 AAG Annual Meeting in San Francisco on Thursday, March 31. All sessions will be held in Room Golden Gate 3, Hilton Hotel, Lobby Level.

The first session is a workshop entitled “Bringing GeoCapabilities to Geography in Higher Education”, scheduled for 10:00 – 11:40 AM. Workshop participants will be encouraged to reflect on the activities and outcomes of the GeoCapabilities Project and consider how a Capabilities approach, involving Powerful Disciplinary Knowledge, Curriculum Making and Leadership Perspectives can be used to enhance student engagement in higher education, enhance geographical thinking and improve the quality and outcome of higher education courses in disruptive times.

Following the workshop, three 100-minute paper sessions will explore the theme of “Appreciating Geography as Powerful Disciplinary Knowledge in Schools”. The first paper session will start at 1:20 PM and the final one will conclude at 7:00 PM. Each session will feature four papers and a discussion led by Professor David Lambert.

The papers have all arisen through the project and come either from full project partners (Finland, UK, Eurogeo, USA) or from associate partners (including additional European countries such as Germany, Netherlands and Sweden as well as China, Japan and New Zealand). All of the papers theorize progressive, knowledge-led curriculum thinking in school geography and what the project is calling curriculum leadership among teachers of geography.

Friday, April 1

Panel Session 4202: Geospatial Enrichment of STEM Education 
10:00 AM – 11:40 AM in Golden Gate 2, Hilton Hotel, Lobby Level

Public statements from the US Department of Labor have indicated that geospatial technologies — that is GPS, GIS, and remote sensing — will be in great demand over the next two decades to support a wide variety of careers.

Geography educators are working hard to respond to this reality by including geospatial technology in K-12 classes. In the meantime, class time in geography and social studies is being threatened by a national emphasis on language arts, math and science.

This panel reports on a major NSF funded project designed to inject geospatial technology and spatial thinking into math and science pre service classes and in service workshops. Substantial cooperative discussions have proceeded with colleagues at East China Normal University in Shanghai, China.

Panel Session 4402: A Research Coordination Network for Transformative Research in Geography Education

1:20 PM – 3:00 PM in Golden Gate 2, Hilton Hotel, Lobby Level

This session will provide a progress report on the National Center for Research in Geography Education, including an overview of current research projects and a preview of upcoming events sponsored by NCRGE. The session will include a mini-workshop to generate ideas for building the NCRGE research coordination network.