Welcome from the LaGEA Coordinator! March 27, 2015 Volume 2, Issue 1 Geography Awareness Week Celebrated at LSU One of the LaGEA initiatives for Fall 2014 was to increase awareness of geography among higher education students. Efforts to attract geography majors were concentrated at LSU— Baton Rouge during the week of November 17-21, 2014 — Geography Awareness Week. LSU is now the only school in the state to offer a major in geography, although Louisiana Tech offers a degree in geographic information systems. LSU Geography major Michael Vingiello is shown on the right in the photograph below encouraging his fellow students to take geography courses and consider the options that a geography de- gree can provide for them. Handout items like blow-up globes, squeezie-globes, and keychains were distributed to the LSU students. Please learn more about LaGEA on our new website: (http://lagea.ga.lsu.edu). LaGEA Membership Grows As of this writing, LaGEA membership now stands at 97. While our enrollment not yet where we would like to see it, we have indeed experienced impressive growth since July 2014 when the Listserv was created. If you know anyone who would like join LaGEA (free membership) and receive our newsletter and other updates, please contact Robert Rohli at [email protected]. UNO Geographer/Dean Earns National Geographic Society Award Darrell Kruger, Dean of the College of Education and Human Development at the University of New Orleans, was recently presented with the Certificate of Appreciation Award by the National Geographic Society. Dr. Kruger is a trained geographer with a Ph.D. from LSU under the renowned cultural geographer Sam Hilliard. Kruger has tirelessly promoted geography education in the K- 16 curriculum in both Louisiana and Illinois, having served as the Coordinator of the Illinois Geographic Alliance for more than a decade along with co-directing LaGEA. He used the $2 million endowment for geographic education in Illinois for many important and efficient programs. For example, he created their first-ever strategic plan, developed a statewide geography initiative for students, initiated a partnership with a public radio sta- tion to promote public awareness, directed summer teaching workshops and implemented “Lincoln on the Tri-State Heritage Trail” interactive website. Before joining UNO, Darrell also served as an associate professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Louisiana at Monroe and as interim Associate Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies and Manager of the Center for Emerging Entrepreneurs at Illinois State University. ConnectED and ArcGIS Online Workshops On December 6, LaGEA hosted the “Louisiana GIS K-12: ConnectED and ArcGIS Online” workshop on the LSU campus in Baton Rouge. Fourteen Louisiana teachers participated and learned about the possibilities of using geographic information systems (GIS) as a teaching tool in their K-12 classroom. Three Louisiana geospatial technology educators, Fran Harvey, Barbaree Duke, and Forest Lamb, led the workshop. All three are veterans of the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) T3G Institute and therefore are certified by ESRI to assist teach- ers in bringing GIS into their classrooms. We are planning for another iteration of this workshop to be held in early June, with the exact date yet to be announced. If you would like to participate, please contact [email protected]. LaGEA at National Council for Social Studies Have you marked your calendar to attend the 2015 NCSS conference in New Orleans, November 13-15? The Conference Committee along with the Louisiana Council for the Social Studies is busy planning a spectacular meeting for social studies educators. We have received confirmation from 15 special guest speakers, including: · Fatima Shaik, a New Orleans author of books for adults and children. Her latest titles are What Went Missing and What Got Found and Louisiana Stories for Young Adults. Her work focuses on the Louisiana Creole and African-American experience. · Clifton Truman Daniel, the grandson of former President Truman and author of Growing up With My Grandfather: Memories of Harry S. Truman. Daniel will join Masahiro Sasaki, Japanese peace activist and brother of Sadako Sasaki, sub- ject of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. · David Crane, the former Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone · Karen Korematsu, daughter of the late Fred T. Korematsu and co-founder of the Fred T. Korematsu Institute for Civil Rights and Education and the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco · Rick Steves, host of the television travel series Rick Steve’s Europe. Rick will discuss his book, Travel as a Political Act. There is still time to register for the conference. Let’s have a strong showing by our local geography educators as we host our colleagues from around the nation and beyond. Visit http:// www.socialstudies.org/ ncss2015proposals to learn more. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email Kim O’Neil, NBCT NCSS, President-elect at [email protected] Eighth Grade Social Studies Workshop LaGEA Represented at Alliance Coordinators Meeting Robert Rohli attended the Alliance Coordinators Workshop at National Geographic Headquarters in Washington DC, from February 23-27. He was able to meet with other states’ alliance coordinators to share ideas for fundraising, programming, and policies. A highlight of the trip was “Hill Day,” which allowed him to visit Louisiana’s Congressional delegation to discuss the importance of geography education. LaGEA co-sponsored a fullday Louisiana History/ Social Studies Teachers' Workshop on Saturday, March 21, at Louisiana State University’s Student Union Building. Dr. Paul E. Binford, a secondary social studies professor at LSU and Associate Coordinator of LaGEA, directed the workshop. Dr. Binford has recently published the teacher wrapround edition of Louisiana: Our History, Our Home, an 8th grade social studies textbook. Dr. Robert Rohli made a guest presentation entitled, “A Geographer’s Per- spective on Teaching 8th Grade Louisiana Geography.” Geography continues as one of the major strands in the 8th grade Louisiana social studies curriculum. Participants at the meeting expressed interest in joining LaGEA. Dr. Alecia Long of LSU’s Department of History also presented at the conference, on teaching Louisiana history. Anyone interested in participating in next year’s workshop is encouraged to contact Dr. Binford at [email protected].
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