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].