Beat the Heat: Making Heat Safety Fun
2024-10-19 16:00 - 16:30 (America/Phoenix) | Mission Palms Conference Room: Dolores
Overview
Join us to discover initiatives aimed at educating students on the importance of heat safety. Our online game, developed in collaboration with Arizona State University’s Ask a Biologist team, presents a virtual world where students embark on exciting quests, collect items, and learn about organisms, all while navigating a scorching city and striving to keep cool. Additionally, we invite you to explore the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning’s interactive map, which empowers students to monitor and report heat conditions nationwide.
Session Focus
Middle School/Junior High | Interactive Mapping | Heat safety | Exploration | Technology
Conference Room
Dolores
Meet the Presenter
Dr. Heather Moll is the Co-Coordinator of the Arizona Geographic Alliance, whose mission is to advocate for geography education and geographic literacy. She is also an Instructional Professional at Arizona State University and guides the master's students through their final capstone projects. As a former high school physical and natural sciences teacher, she joined the first cohort class for ASU’s Master of Advanced Study Geography Education and graduated with her masters in 2009. Heather completed her Ph.D. with Dr. Ronald Dorn in Geography Education research in 2024 and loves helping students explore the world of Geography.

Group Testing in the AP Classroom
2024-10-19 16:00 - 16:30 | Mission Palms Coference Room: Joshua Tree
Overview
Enhance student learning through group testing in any classroom. The methodology in this session is geared toward the AP classroom but can be modified to fit the needs of any classroom where summative assessments take place. Group testing is student-centered and allows for a deeper understanding of the material as well as valuable test taking and communication skills.
Session Focus
Secondary/High School | Assessment | Collaboration | Student-Centered
Conference Room
Joshua Tree
Meet the Presenter
Over her 15-year career, Elizabeth Gonzalez has taught various courses in high school social studies, including US History, World History, Latino Studies, Holocaust Studies, AP World History, AP Human Geography and AP African American Studies. Elizabeth believes strongly in the importance of a global education and the need to consider one’s role in the larger community, encouraging students to seek and understand multiple perspectives. As a lifelong learner, Elizabeth has participated in various Professional Development opportunities, including the Qatar Foundation International & UT Austin’s Teacher Leadership Program; led an educational tour with the TransAtlantic Outreach Program & Goethe Institut; participated in a seminar with Echoes & Reflections at Yad Vashem; and most recently became a LEAD fellow with Notre Dame University; in an effort to promote a deeper understanding for her students in her classroom. Gonzalez currently teaches at Bishop Lynch High School in Dallas, Texas.

Unite the APHG Curriculum with Six Place Processes
2024-10-19 16:00 - 16:30 | Mission Palms Conference Room: Covetto, 60 E 5th St., Arizona, 85281
Overview
Human geography courses tend to be compartmentalized into distinct topics, such as the geography of migration, religion, linguistics, politics, land use, agriculture, urbanization, and economics. This segmented approach, akin to a “grand tour,” can hinder learners’ abilities to recognize overlaps among geographic phenomena. Spatial thinking is frequently cited as a key tool for making connections in Advanced Placement Human Geography (APHG). While spatial thinking is useful for discerning patterns across space, it falls short in helping to explain the diverse processes that underlie people-place relations. I propose incorporating David Seamon’s six place processes–interaction, identity, release, realization, intensification, and creation–into the APHG curriculum. Specifically, I illustrate how each APHG unit can be framed according to the six place processes, offering a holistic understanding of human geography.
Session Focus
APHG | Place | Spatial Thinking | Curriculum and Instruction
Conference Room
Covetto
Meet the Presenter
Thomas Larsen is 2024 President of the National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE). He serves as Co-Coordinator of the Geographic Alliance of Iowa (GAI) and teaches geography at the University of Northern Iowa.

Tales & Travels: First Chapter Friday
2024-10-19 16:00 - 16:30 | Mission Palms Conference Room: San Pedro, 60 E 5th St., Tempe, Arizona, 85281
Overview
Embark on a global storytelling journey! World Geography meets middle grade books through First Chapter Friday. Students make real-world connections through weekly reads that have a setting in a current region of study. The World Geography curriculum shines through weekly read-alouds while fostering inclusivity and a love for books.
Session Focus
Middle School/Junior High | World Geography | Literature | World/International
Conference Room
San Pedro
Meet the Presenter
Kelly Zander Patterson, is in her tenth year of teaching at Charlotte Country Day School, however she has been teaching for a total of thirteen years. She was born and raised in Columbia, South Carolina. She is a graduate of the College of Charleston, where she received her History and Secondary Education degrees. She is a wife, mother, and sister, who enjoys spending time with family. She loves to read, bake, and she also has a passion for entertaining, whether it’s organizing a small impromptu get-together, or hosting a large social gathering. She enjoy the details of personalized stationery, beautiful gift wrap, and a handwritten note. She is currently teaching and advising seventh grade students, while also serving as the chair of the Social Studies Department at the Middle School.

Lessons Learned from Creating a Local Atlas
2024-10-19 16:00 - 16:30 | Mission Palms Conference Room: Colonnade, 60 E 5th St., Tempe, Arizona, 85281
Overview
A resource geographer, a cartographer, and an educator collaborated to make an atlas of a local watershed as a tool for geographic education. This project addresses declining geographic literacy and the homogenization of geographic products and school curricula. The fifteen maps help illustrate key terms of geographic literacy and prompt discussion of compelling dilemmas of managing resources and human needs in the complex dynamic of culture, environment, and physical systems. The companion narratives promote critical thinking about local issues. Written at grade 10 literacy level, the atlas is meant to function as both a geographic education tool in secondary education venues, but also to provide basic watershed-scale geographic information that is accessible to citizens, local government and resource managers within the watershed. Of interest to educators and civic groups is the template to generate similar products for place-based education in other locations.
Session Focus
Higher Education | Place-based | Literacy/STEM
Conference Room
Colonnade
Presenters
Gina Bloodsworth and Naomi Petersen, Professor, Central Washington University

How High Impact, Career, and Experiential Learning Opportunities Support Geography Students
2024-10-19 16:45 - 17:15 | Mission Palms Conference Room: Xavier
Overview
This project explores the ways in which faculty and undergraduate students at a midsize- regional comprehensive university in eastern Colorado have found ways to partner with U.S. parks and protected areas through firsthand, experiential learning and career-based workshops. We use data from ten years of partnerships with Colorado and Arizona parks to illustrate the ways in which our largely first-generation student population has benefited from community-engaged research with the park service and ultimately influenced their future career trajectories beyond graduation. We acknowledge that high, impact experiential learning opportunities may create more liability and risk for faculty and staff at resource-strapped institutions, but that they can also lead to follow-on synergies that benefit both campuses and students in unanticipated ways. We share ten years of qualitative data from program assessment as a tool for other institutions who want to create engaged experiences of their own.
Session Focus
Higher Education | Experiential education, high impact practices, field geography | Curriculum and Instruction
Conference Room
Xavier
Meet the Presenter
Karen Barton is a Professor of Geography, GIS, and Sustainability at the University of Northern Colorado. Her work focuses on community resilience in marine and agricultural communities in the wake of global environmental change. With support from Fulbright and NEH, she published, “Africa’s Joola Shipwreck: Causes and Consequences of a Humanitarian Disaster,” which investigates the second greatest maritime shipwreck in non-wartime history. She is a member of Homeward Bound, a global leadership initiative for women in science. Barton currently serves as a Fellow of the Explorers Club, the Royal Geographical Society, and past President of Fulbright Colorado.

GIS in the Community: Giving students practical experience while making meaningful community connect
2024-10-19 16:45 - 17:15 | Mission Palms Conference Room: Dolores
Overview
As part of the Department of Geography and Sustainability at UTK GIST curriculum, we offer an elective 400-level course titled GIS in the Community. This is a community engaged learning course in which students are exposed to challenges facing local community organizations. They then work collaboratively with the organizations, using their expertise and drawing on their collective understanding of interdisciplinary perspectives to plan, develop and implement a GIS project that satisfies the needs of a community organization. Our students have had the opportunity to collaborate with a variety of state and local agencies, as well as with non-profit organizations and research groups. This presentation will aim to explain the importance of community engaged learning as part of the educational experience of any student and how GIS software and products assist to achieve meaningful connections with local community organizations.
Session Focus
All Grade Levels | Community Engaged Learning| GIS
Conference Room
Dolores
Meet the Parents
Mayra Román-Rivera is a coastal geomorphologist specializing in post-storm recovery and remote sensing and GIS applications of coastal environments. Her research focuses on understanding changes that occur in the coast over time (i.e. erosion, accretion, sea-level rise), how they change the landscapes, how they affect communities and people, and how, if possible, can those changes be mitigated. She also participates in community outreach and citizen science programs. She believes it is our responsibility as scientists to take what we have learned through research to the communities and help them become more resilient and better prepared to face changes happening in their communities. As part of that interest, She works in the incorporation of community-engaged learning in the courses she teaches.

Where it's at: Interpreting Marine Biological Research for Creating Geographic Education Activities
2024-10-19 16:45 - 17:15 | Mission Palms Coference Room: Joshua Tree
Overview
Marine biological research activities provide a rich and engaging basis for geographic educational activities with a strong foundation in STEM content. In this presentation, learning activities based on marine biological research are described, as activities conducted in field and lab were documented and delivered to audiences from pre-K students to professionals. Multiple research activities conducted with scientists from NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, San Diego State University, State of California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and other organizations, provided the data and experiential content for engaging students in both passive and active, student-centered, learning activities. Research technologies applied included GIS, GPS, satellite, UAS/drone; piloted aircraft; small boat and ship platforms; and various observation and data collection techniques. Research subjects addressed included the presence and movements of dolphins, whales, sharks, tuna, and marine schooling fish. A centerpiece in the geographic narrative is, of course, the map. In addition, the richness of data and its use for inquiry and summary can lead aspiring geographers into statistics, charting, photographic and image analysis; photogrammetry, and other pursuits. The key thread among all these considerations is the geographic narrative with emphasis understanding our living Earth from a spatial perspective.
Session Focus
All Grade Levels | STEM | Interpretation | Narrative | Technology
Conference Room
Joshua Tree
Meet the Presenter
Alex G. Kesaris, B.S., M.A., GISP, is a volunteer educator who loves presenting geographic knowledge
through narratives about the research with which he is most familiar. He has conducted field research
from shore, small boats, ships, and aircraft with scientists from SDSU, UCSD SIO, NOAA, and CDFW.
Along the way, he developed and delivered educational activities, posters, presentations, technical
memoranda, and peer-reviewed publications for diverse audiences. For the past 12 years, Alex has
provided GIS services with Sustenant, CDFW, GISinc, Axim Geospatial, and NV5 Geospatial.

Joining the Mapping Revolution
2024-10-19 16:45 - 17:15 | All Grade Levels | STEM | Mapping
Overview
TeenMaptivists is a national student organization where students contribute data in OpenStreetMap all around the world. Students are learning the power of the map and making a difference one edit at a time. Come learn more how your students can become part of the mapping revolution!
Session Focus

Secondary/High School | Mapping, Activism, Community | STEM
Conference Room
Colonnade
Meet the Presenter
Greg Hill has enjoyed a twenty-six-year career in education. He teaches High School AP Human Geography,World Regional Geography, and African-American Studies in Mesquite, Texas. Mr. Hill began his Social Studies teaching career as a World History teacher in Dallas Public Schools. He is also currently a Graduate student of Geography at Marshall University focusing on Urban Geography, Latin America, and the African Diaspora. He is the 2016 recipient of the Distinguished Educator Award: K-12 from the National Council for Geographic Education. He is also the 2020 recipient of the International Educator of the Year Award from the World Affairs Council of Dallas-Ft. Worth. At Horn High, Greg sponsors the Global Young Leaders and coaches the Current Events Team.

Celeste Reynolds has enjoyed a twenty one year career in education at Mashpee Middle High School, in Mashpee, MA. She teaches AP Human Geography, Women’s Studies, US History, Current Events, and is the coordinator for Senior Seminar. Celeste was awarded American Geographical Society Teacher Fellow in 2016, 2017 & 2019, the recipient of the Massachusetts Council for the Social Studies John Reilly Award for Excellence in Teaching Geography 2018, and awarded in 2020 the National Council Geographic Education Distinguished K-12 Teacher. Celeste is also an Advanced Placement reader for College Board, a member of the steering committee of TeachOSM, a Teacher Advisory Board Member for American Geographical Society, and serves on the Board of Directors for National Council Geographic Education.

Double Displacement: Unlikely Intersection of Americans
2024-10-19 16:45 - 17:15 | Mission Palms Conference Room: Covetto, 60 E 5th St., Arizona, 85281
Overview
During WWII, President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 resulted in approximately 125,000 people of Japanese ancestry to be forcibly removed from their homes on the West Coast, then incarcerated in government-built concentration camps. Two of the ten War Relocation Camps were located in Arizona, notably on American Indian reservation lands. 13,000+ incarcerees were “relocated” to the Rivers confinement site on the Gila River Indian Reservation, with 18,000 sent to Poston located on the Colorado River Indian Reservation. Through the analysis of primary and secondary sources, including multimedia and maps, participants explore the intersecting histories and geographical perspectives of Japanese Americans imprisoned in these camps and the Indigenous communities on whose lands the U.S. government built them. This culturally responsive lesson appeals to educators of Geography, US History, and AP Human Geography, serving as a case study for Population, Migration and Political Geography.
Session Focus
Secondary/High School | Place-based | Cultures | Migration | U.S. History
Conference Room
Covetto
Meet the Presenter
A self-proclaimed “geofanatic” with 30+ years in education, Jeannine Kuropatkin teaches World History/Geography and Holocaust Studies at Red Mountain High School in Mesa, Arizona. As a coach for the Model UN Team and as the campus liaison with both the Sister Cities Mesa, Youth Ambassador Exchange Program and Global Ties Arizona, Jeannine promotes student awareness of global connections as well as opportunities for citizen diplomacy and travel abroad. Participation in two Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad (Morocco and Indonesia) and teacher fellowships in Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar, and the US Territories (Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands), have allowed Jeannine to share authentic cultural experiences in the classroom and at teacher workshops. An avid curriculum writer, Jeannine’s Geography and History lessons are published on websites such as PBS Learning Media, Arizona Geographic Alliance, University of Arizona’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Fred T Korematsu Institute, GeoCivics Project, as well as in the journal, “The Geography Teacher.” Jeannine actively embraces leadership roles in Social Studies Education, serving as the current Vice President of the Arizona Council for the Social Studies (ACSS), long-standing Teacher Consultant with the Arizona Geographic Alliance (AzGA), and member of the Holocaust Education Advisory Committee for the Arizona Jewish Historical Society. Jeannine has received the NCGE Distinguished Teaching Award, Herff-Jones/Nystrom & NCGE Lesson Plan Award, and NCGE/CRAM Award for Exemplary Classroom Lesson. She is also a three-time recipient of the Great Moments in Teaching Social Studies Award, as well as the Isidore Starr Distinguished Social Studies Teacher Award from the Arizona Council of Social Studies. Jeannine was selected for the City of Mesa, Martin Luther King Jr. “Educator of the Year” Award.
Courtney Peagler is Vice President and Director of Education for the Fred T. Korematsu Institute in San Francisco, CA. A mixed-race descendant of Japanese Americans forced to leave their homes in California during WWII, she is committed to ensuring this shameful history is not forgotten and that its lessons are applied to the fight for social justice for all. Prior to joining the Institute, she was on the Advisory Committee and served as a docent for the exhibition “Then They Came for Me: Incarceration of Japanese Americans During WWII and the Demise of Civil Liberties” in the Presidio, San Francisco. A parent of two, she is an active board member at Daruma No Gakko, a non profit, co-op, parent-run summer program designed for elementary-aged children to learn about Japanese American heritage. She also serves on the Council of Friends of the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. In addition to these roles, Courtney is a partner with her husband at Year 26 Consulting, where they provide strategic advisory, execution, and project management services to mission-based organizations. Previously, Courtney was on the executive management team at a New York-based education technology company and worked in a variety of roles in both for-profit and non-profit organizations. She has been designing and facilitating learning experiences for adults in a variety of professions, from nurses to university educators for over a decade. Her prior experience also includes instructional design for both online and live learning experiences, the evaluation of emerging technologies for education, assisting educators in their use of technology, website design and development, and media production. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Harvard and her MA in Educational Communication and Technology from New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education.

Grant Skinner is the Social Studies Content Specialist for the Phoenix Union High School District (PXU). He has worked for PXU for 23 years spending 19 years in the classroom as a Social Studies teacher and Instructional Leader. He has extensive experience in writing and developing curriculum. This includes Culturally Relevant U.S. History courses from the perspectives of Mexican Americans, Native Americans, African Americans, and a Navajo Government course. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Communication from the University of New Mexico and his MA in Curriculum and Instruction from Ottawa University.

The “Space Time Continuum”: GeoHistoGram Style
2024-10-19 16:45 - 17:15 | Mission Palms Conference Room: San Pedro, 60 E 5th St., Tempe, Arizona, 85281
Overview
Timelines provide students with a look at chronology. Maps allow students to observe spatial information. The GeoHistoGram provides educators with a resource that puts spatial information and chronological information all in one place for students. In this session, participants will experience the GeoHistoGram, completing several different classroom activities utilizing the GeoHistoGram in different ways. Participants will leave the session with several, classroom ready activities to use with students. Participants will also have the opportunity to see the Michigan Geographic Alliance website and the variety of other GeoHistoGram resources.
Session Focus
Middle School/Junior High | Resource | Curriculum | World History
Conference Room
San Pedro
Meet the Presenter
Cynthia Bloom is an experienced Middle School educator and member of the Michigan Geographic Alliance. A seasoned presenter, she enjoys sharing her knowledge with other educators at local, state, and national levels. Her time with the Alliance has led to several rewarding opportunities, including a Teacher Excellence Award for American Councils, with an exchange experience in Tajikistan, as well as a 2019 Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship which included an amazing expedition to the British and Irish Isles.
