The World GeoHistoGram (GHG) is a flexible graphic organizer that can be used to support many different instructional strategies and activities. This visual resource offers teachers and students a way to organize knowledge into a geographic and historical framework. More important, the GHG is one of the first instructional products designed to…

The GeoHistoGram is a carefully designed graphic organizer to help solve a common educational problem. Its purpose is to help students organize facts about history and geography in order to remember them better. In this article, the authors will summarize the neuroscience that underlies the design of the GeoHistoGram.

What is known about places we have not been to before we learn from maps, geographical magazines, or maybe travel reports. Ordinarily, this information is for granted without reflecting on its origin and underlying theoretical premises. Usually, this lack of reflection does not appear as problematic. However, what can can be learned from the fact…

This exercise introduces students to the observation that warming is unequal at the level of regions and countries, helps them analyze why this is so, and encourages reflection on actions by specific countries. In addition, students will uncover the relative roles of methane and carbon dioxide in local warming, the role of greenhouse gas emissions…

This work presents a new teaching module for understanding the geographical dimensions of historical events in Africa. This case study focuses in particular on the Joola shipwreck in Senegal in order to illustrate geographic areas of study including the rural-urban divide, colonial geopolitics, cultural diversity, and West Africa's physical…

Games have been used as instructional tools throughout history. Educational experiences are more effective when learners are active participants, and when teachers carefully choose fun games with appropriate game mechanics and clear curricular connections, students can engage in rigorous mental processes. At the same time, students may learn a…

With new standards in social science and science, student-centered inquiry drives contemporary geography education. This article introduces and explains the Geo-Inquiry Process. Developed by the National Geographic Society, the Geo-Inquiry Process centers on the fundamental nature of global interconnectedness, the idea that wise decisions at all…

The aim of this article is to provide basic geographic background to assist readers in understanding the geography of North Korea. Although few U.S. geographers have traveled to this country, limited information about North Korea can be constructed and compiled. Sources include interviews of South Korean geographers, all volumes of The National…

Teaching and learning about political boundaries in an effective, engaging manner can be enriched through the use of webGIS mapping tools and spatial data. WebGIS enabled tools bring problem solving, critical thinking, and spatial analysis to education. Teaching with GIS is conducive to a multi-disciplinary, problem-solving learning environment…

Writing is a challenge, no matter the subject or grade level. Most students have not had their writing graded against a rubric that contains very specific language and content. Many are paralyzed by the scope of the course, and the idea of answering a free response question is very intimidating. This lesson plan introduces a writing boot camp…

The aim of this lesson plan is to explore effective methods that students can use to dispose of wastes around them in their communities. The guiding question for this lesson is: What are possible solutions to increase effective decomposition of waste in our society?

The author assigned their students to keep a weekly cloud journal. Each week, for seven weeks, students were required to take a picture of a cloud, identify the location and name, and give the scientific definition of the cloud. The author added a Sense of Place Inventory to each weekly entry. Using the GeoCamp Iceland Field Guide as an example,…

While students generally understand how humans impact their physical environment, it can be challenging for them to explain how this key geographic theme is "bidirectional." How does the land influence the people and vice versa? This exchange is what creates a sense of place for every spot on our planet. Being so physically and…

The National Council for Geographic Education GeoCamp Iceland is a unique field experience designed to energize, inspire, and edify experienced and novice geography teachers. The 2015 institute (nineteen participants from fourteen states) was designed for K-12 educators and in 2017 (twenty-one participants from eighteen states and Washington, DC)…

A lot of the activities of daily living require energy, playing video games, making dinner, turning on the lights, using a computer, and perhaps even brushing our teeth requires energy. In this unit students discover what energy is, think about where it comes from, analyze options for making energy evaluate feasibility in different parts of the…