The regular meeting of the Washington Geographic Alliance (WGA) Board of Directors was called to order at 6:43 p.m. by Tim Scharks in the home of Richard Kennedy and Heidi Morgan, 18825 6th Avenue SW, Normandy Park, Washington.
Present: President Tim Scharks of Green River Community College (GRCC), Vice-President Meghan Hoyer of St. Philomena School, Treasurer Heidi Morgan of the National Geographic Society's (NGS) Grosvenor Council, Secretary Richard Kennedy of the NGS's Grosvenor Council, and Director Pat LeRoy of St. Francis of Assisi School.
A motion to approve the draft minutes of the Board of Directors meeting of November 1, 2008 was made by Tim and seconded by Meghan. The motion passed unanimously.
Tim will mail the 30 NGS World maps to Pat. For items and services under $3,500, GRCC does not require us to request bids. Tim is investigating the procedure for items and services above $3,500. George Scarola of the League of Education Voters has been contacted but he has not yet replied. The following items are pending: contacting Judy Hartmann, listing candidates for the WGA Steering Committee, and the Assessment of Geographic Knowledge.
Meghan showed the board a draft of the application form to request the NGS giant traveling map. She will send the final version to Tim who will convert it to Adobe PDF format and place it on our web site. The information on the Newspapers In Education program is on tonight's agenda. Meghan will work on repurposing the WGA brochure during the Christmas holiday.
Heidi's report on the IRS Form 990-EZ is on tonight's agenda.
Pat's signup with OneCause is still pending.
All of Emily's actions items are still pending.
Richard emailed the board members a copy of their action items. The contract with Allan Cartography, the meeting with Tina Orwall, NGS acceptance of WGA gifts and Newspapers In Education are on tonight's agenda. Bob Dulli is check for presentations. Richard McEnery has twice been asked for the Puyallup Fair photos but he has yet to reply. A list of candidates for the WGA Steering Committee is pending. Richard continues to work on a revision to our travel policy. Richard will continue entering the WGA financial records into QuickBooks 2009.
The checking account balance as of November 23, 2008 is $588.76. There was a deposit of $113.94 from the Employee's Community Fund of the Boeing Company since the last report.
The WGA's 2007 990 Federal Tax Return was due November 15, 2008. Form 8858 (Application for Extension of Time To File an Exempt Organization Return) was filed granting us an automatic 3-month extension of time to February 15, 2009. A draft of the return was received from Franco & Pangallo, CPA and it is under review.
Richard asked Chris Shearer if NGS could accept and have Boeing match gifts designated for the WGA. He replied "I think we can accept matched passthrough monies--let me ask Development."
Mary Cortinas, our Public Engagement Coordinator, emailed the following report.
"The NCGE conference in Dearborn Michigan increased my awareness of Geography education and how it can be worked in to my teaching. I attended several classes and went on a few field trips. The classes I chose to attend focused primarily on ideas for Elementary teachers. I received ideas for lesson plans, hand on activities, and resource materials.
I went on field trips to The African American museum, Motown records, the Ford Museum, and Greenfield village. All of the fieldtrips were educational and exciting. I must admit, however, that the Motown trip was my favorite.
The main focus of my trip was the training for the My Wonderful World campaign. The main idea of the training was to get people interested in Geography primarily through accessing the My Wonderful World Web site. We were given an overview of the MWW campaign. Then we worked on ideas and strategies for getting the message out to people. The ideas included accessing the media, online resources, planning events and partnerships in the community. We were then asked to brainstorm partnerships, primarily in our local area but also across the state.
I have started contacting the organizations I have on my Brainstorming list. I have contacted and am trying to arrange a visit to two teacher education programs in our area. I have arranged to present the MWW information at several staff meetings in the area. Our district conferences are occurring during Geography awareness week I will be setting up an area in our school Lobby showing the MWW video, hand out materials, and have computers available for people to sign up at mywonderfulworld.org. In addition, my school has for the first time ever, signed up for the Geography Bee and the teachers, parents and students are excited about Geography. I am receiving questions, comments and ideas about working Geography back into the day and I am seeing maps being pulled down and used!
Thank you for the opportunity to be involved in the Washington State Geographic Alliance and in the My Wonderful World campaign. I look forward to working together on opportunities to extend Geography Education across the state."
Heidi and Richard met with Washington State Representative-elect Tina Orwall (33rd legislative district - D) on November 18. We explained the importance of geography and how our current educational system does an inadequate job of teaching geography. We then discussed the role of Geographic Alliances in bettering geography education. Examples of summer institutes and traveling giant maps were given. Tina was given a copy of the packet we distributed to the last legislature last session. Richard also gave her his copy of the book Why Geography Matters by Harm de Blij.
Tina appeared to be interested in supporting the bill. She is going to speak with Representative Shay Schual-Berke and I asked her to also contact Speaker Chopp. Lanny Proffer is drafting a letter from Gil to her requesting her active support of the endowment.
Richard and Heidi met with Prof. Mitchell on November 18, 2008. They discussed geography education in Washington State and the role of the Washington Geographic Alliance. A copy of Prof. Mitchell's grant proposal was distributed. She may be in need of additional middle school students as participants. Prof. Mitchell is also looking at coordinating with the Department of Education to provide geography course content for education major.
A motion directing the President write the National Geographic Education Foundation expressing the board's support for University of Washington's "The Mapping Youth Journeys Project in Seattle" project proposal was made by Richard and seconded by Meghan. The motion passed unanimously.
Sarah Elwood and Katharyne Mitchell (Dept, of Geography, University of Washington)
National Geographic Education Foundation, Urban Initiative Grants
The Mapping Youth Journeys Project in Seattle
Abstract: Mapping Youth Journeys is a three to four year research, education, and civic engagement initiative that seeks to realize the potential of interactive geovisualization technologies in geography education. Over recent years, many new online geospatial tools have emerged in the 'Web 2.0' tradition of interactivity and user-generated content. Google's MyMaps interface, for example, allows users to add their own knowledge or experiences to a map, upload multimedia representations of places (such as audio or video clips, sketch maps, or photos), and explore locations and information added by others. Our project explores the promise of these new technologies to promote and enhance geography education, deepen children's understanding of the geographies that comprise their everyday experiences, and bridge the so-called Digital Divide that often prevents low-income and minority youth from accessing geospatial data and technologies. Our goal is to develop, evaluate, and disseminate a web-based platform enabling young people to carry out simple mapping functions, and to prepare a cycle of three 10-week learning activities for middle school students. In these activities, the students will learn to use the mapping platform, map and discuss everyday geographies encountered as they move through time and space in an ordinary day, and develop skills for communicating their place-based knowledge with civic actors and institutions, and with youth in other places. We will first develop and pilotthe mapping interface and learning activities with underprivileged teens participating in the Seattle YMCA's Community Learning Centers. In the second phase of the project, we will revise the mapping interface and learning activities and share them with after-school programs and middle school teachers nationwide. Mapping Youth Journeys relies strongly on the National Geography Standards to structure the program's learning goals, assess its learning outcomes, and facilitate its uptake by educators across the United States.
PROJECT SUMMARY
1. Research needs and motivating concepts
"Often the study of geography begins with one's home community and expands as a person gains greater experience. Thus, geography provides a conceptual link for children between home, school, and the world beyond." (http://ncge.net/geography/education/importance/page2.cfm)
Mapping Youth Journeys is a research, education, and civic engagement initiative that takes up many of the ideas expressed in this quotation from the National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE). Our project is rooted in the proposition that place - specifically a reflective knowledge of the geographies we experience in our daily lives - can be a central catalyst for enhancing young people's geographic understanding and their skills for civic engagement. We propose that participatory learning activities which encourage youth to map and share their experiences and observations of these places can foster a shared awareness of the characteristics, resources, and needs of different places and populations. It can also enhance their ability to understand and engage the world through spatial concepts and representations. Further, we are interested in how interactive web-based mapping technologies might be used in a participatory environment to enhance geography education, particularly for marginalized and at-risk youth.
This project responds to the need for research investigating several related developments in geography, education, and geospatial technologies. The rapid emergence of interactive online geovisualization technologies, such as Google's MyMaps or Microsoft's Virtual Earth, has been accompanied by a plethora of claims about the societal benefits of these new technologies. These include their potential to create citizens who are more knowledgeable about geography and ways of representing geographic information ('neogeographers'), thus lessening the so-called digital divide by increasing access to geographic information and representational tools (Turner 2006). Unfortunately, there is little empirically-grounded research investigating these claims, and little documentation of efforts to incorporate these new technologies into youth mapping initiatives that are emerging across the U.S. in school and non-school learning environments.
We believe that digital technologies are an increasingly central way in which young people know and experience the world around them, but their potential for promoting geographic learning and reducing a digital divide must be investigated and researched in a more rigorous manner. We propose further that in a society where citizens' participation has been on the wane for years (Putnam, 1995), everyday spaces such as neighborhoods, schools, parks, and public transit are precisely the sites where teens encounter civil society, and hence geography education can play a significant role in building a bridge to greater civic engagement for this age group.
Mapping Youth Journeys is informed by the pioneering work of John Dewey, who argued that young people's skills as democratic citizens can be developed in multiple learning environments and through reflective analysis of everyday knowledge and experiences (1966[1916]). It is also informed by geographers' more recent work suggesting that experiential, localized learning about place can strengthen civic awareness and student learning (Mohan 1995, Elwood 2004). In addition, we also draw upon emergent participatory GIS research that seeks to understand how, when, and why the use of spatial technologies can be empowering in participatory learning processes (e.g. Esnard et al. 2004, Dennis 2006, Perkins 2007).
2. Project Objectives, Outcomes, and Implementation Structure
The goal of Mapping Youth Journeys is to create and evaluate:
We will develop and pilot Mapping Youth Journeys through collaboration with YMCA-linked after-school programs at Seattle middle schools, but our objective is to create the Mapping Youth Journeys resources such that they can be used in both school and non-school learning environments around the U.S. With an eye towards this 'portability' feature, as well as the accessibility of our mapping interface for under-resourced communities, schools, and youth programs, we intend to rely upon a freely available mapping API, such as the one offered by Google.
The Mapping Youth Journeys learning activities are organized as three 10-week units. In Unit One, the youth will first learn about mapping techniques and technologies using our mapping interface, and then they will map their own everyday travel and other experiences in their local communities. A key element of Unit One is its fundamental inter-activity. In addition to creating their own journey-maps, the youth will be exploring, annotating, and discussing one another's maps. Through this collaborative component, young people learn about both the similarities and differences in the types of neighborhoods they inhabit, the modes of transportation they engage, the forms of labor employed in their own movements (parents, bus drivers, etc.), the types of goods and resources accessible or not accessible to them, etc. Further, Unit One will conclude with youth taking adults (the PIs, research assistants, parents, teachers, YMCA staff) on "guided tours" of their journey-maps, telling us what they included (or left out) and why, and what they learned from exploring each other's journey-maps.
In Unit Two, youth will expand their ability to communicate and share geographic knowledge for the purposes of civic engagement. We posit that young people's capacity to use their geographic knowledge to engage with adults and effect social change stems in part from their ability to identify and communicate with relevant civic actors and institutions. In the Unit Two learning activities, youth will explore which actors and institutions they wish to share their knowledge with, and develop skills for sharing their pride and their concerns about their communities in multiple ways, such as letter writing, blogging or email campaigns, town hall style meetings, invitations to civic leaders, or perhaps through providing 'guided tours' of their journey-maps to interested adults and youth.
Unit Three is intended to build young people's capacity for sharing their geographic knowledge beyond the local community. The activities in these final ten weeks will involve the youth in identifying and engaging with youth programs in other cities, and to share the Mapping Youth Journeys web platform and activities with them. As youth in other places begin using the web platform to map their own daily journeys and add comments, Mapping Youth Journeys will begin to generate a collaborative, interactive atlas built by and for young teens.
Mapping Youth Journeys is designed as an action research project and will rely upon qualitative analysis of multiple kinds of data. Our pilot implementations of Mapping Youth Journeys are designed to generate several forms of data which assess student learning in geography, shifts in student capacities for civic engagement, as well as the extent to which interactive geovisualization technologies can be used to foster these learning outcomes in non-school learning environments with at-risk young people. Adult project participants (research assistant, PIs, YMCA staff) will conduct participant observation of all activities in the Seattle-based pilot implementations of Units 1, 2, and 3, and they will keep field journals to record their observations. Further, many of the youth-generated products of these activities will be used as research data, including their journey-maps and annotations, and any additional content they produce in Units 2 and 3, such as letters, blogs, town hall presentations, new journey-maps and comments added by new youth participants. We will analyze these data using techniques drawn from grounded theory, a form of qualitative analysis that examines data in an iterative fashion to identify patterns and themes, and to evaluate the strength and consistency of the emerging findings (Glaser and Strauss 1967). The multiple data sources we will develop through the Mapping Youth Journeys activities are designed to provide complementary perspectives through triangulation, a common approach in interpretive analysis of qualitative data.
If Mapping Youth Journeys is supported under NGEF's Urban Initiatives Program, we would implement it in two stages. In Phase I, we will develop and pre-test the mapping interface, and develop, pilot, and evaluate the Unit One learning activities in Seattle. Phase II will implement the remainder of the project, roughly from January 2010 to January 2012. In this second phase, we will revise our mapping interface and Unit 1 learning activities; develop and pilot the learning activities for Units 2 and 3; and disseminate Mapping Youth Journeys nationwide. To accomplish this last step of Phase II, we will develop educator support materials that illustrate how to implement the program, a web presence that can link youth journey-maps created around the country, and relationships with national organizations such as the YMCA, NCGE, and the National Geographic Society that may be positioned to help us disseminate Mapping Youth Journeys. Specific activities and outputs in Phases I and II are as follows:
| Phase I (9 months) |
|
| Phase II, Year 1 |
|
| Phase II, Year 2 |
|
| Phase II, Year 3 |
|
3. Phase I Activities and Anticipated Outcomes
Phase I is designed to give us a 'head start' in each of the three elements of our project: education, research, and community engagement. As outlined in the table immediately above, we will use Phase I to develop and evaluate our project's technological and learning resources, cement our working relationship with the Seattle YMCA and its middle school education programs, and collect and analyze data evidencing student learning outcomes. In the core project of Phase I we will develop the mapping interface and Unit 1 learning activities, and work closely with the Seattle YMCA's Community Learning Center (CLC) coordinator to plan a pilot implementation at one of its cooperating middle schools. In an extension of Phase I we would pilot Unit 1 with one of these CLCs, to assess student learning outcomes as well as the effectiveness of our mapping interface and Unit 1 learning activities.
Phase I will accomplish several goals. We will create and evaluate tangible outputs that will be used into the future to fully implement Mapping Youth Journeys (specifically, the mapping interface and first learning activities). The youth journey-maps and adult field notes generated in Phase I will create a preliminary body of evidence about geography learning that can be facilitated through participatory use of interactive geovisualization technologies. This preliminary evidence is important for the project in two key ways: it allows us to develop early research findings, and it also demonstrates the value of our project's goals, technologies, pedagogies, and outputs to potential funders for Phase II. We know of no existing initiatives like ours. Given this, we anticipate that funders may be more likely to support us if they can view and use our mapping interface, and review our early evidence about how interactive geovisualization technologies may be used to promote geography learning, build civic engagement, and break down some elements of the digital divide.
A crucial way in which we intend to demonstrate and ultimately realize the contribution of our project for geography education is through a close articulation with specific elements from the NCGE's National Geography Standards. The learning activities we will develop in Phase I (and also in Phase II) will be designed to achieve specific learning goals from these standards. This approach allows us to systematically establish from the outset the forms of geography learning that the project is intended to foster. As well, articulating our project's learning outcomes through the national standards will likely facilitate the adoption of Mapping Youth Journeys by educators nationwide, because they will be able to justify and document its outcomes in these terms. Further, we will use elements of the national standards ourselves, as the analytical rubric through which we assess the learning potential of interactive geovisualization technologies and participatory youth mapping.
More specifically, Mapping Youth Journeys responds to four of the 'essential elements' of the NCGE's standards, which assert that the geographically knowledgeable and informed person understands the world in spatial terms, understands places and regions, understands human systems, and the societal uses of geography. Mapping Youth Journeys learning activities and outcomes will be designed and assessed with respect to:
Evidence of student learning will be drawn from the same outputs that comprise the core qualitative data sources for our project: Journey-maps, map annotations, and other resources produced by the youth as they complete Units 1, 2, and 3; and field notes produced from participating adults' observations of the journey-maps and journey mapping process.
4. Partners in Phase I
In Phase I, our key partner will be the YMCA of Greater Seattle. Specifically, we intend to work with the YMCA's Middle School Community Learning Centers (CLCs) to plan the project and conduct a pilot implementation of the initial 10-week unit of the Mapping Youth Journeys youth activities. Community Learning Centers are a partnership between the Seattle YMCA and Seattle public schools, intended to bolster student attitude, attendance, and academic achievement. Programming is planned and implemented by a YMCA branch, which then conducts the program at a nearby middle school. We have been in contact with Erica Mullen, who directs the Seattle YMCA's middle school programming, since we began seeking funds for Mapping Youth Journeys in 2007. She continues to be enthusiastic about working with us on this project. Based on Ms. Mullen's existing ties with the Meredith Mathews East Madison YMCA, we anticipate working with a CLC in Seattle's Central District and Columbia City, both of which are lower-income neighborhoods with high levels of racial and ethnic diversity.
5. Anticipated Partners and Sources of Funds for Phase II.
Our Seattle-based collaboration with the YMCA in Phase I is intended to build a launch pad for a more extended longer collaboration with the YMCA in Phase II. Our eventual goal is share the Mapping Youth Journeys technological interfaces and learning activities with educators, youth program staff members, and young teens in cities across the country. Given its long history of providing services and youth development opportunities to at-risk and low-income youth in cities across the country - especially its longstanding intermediary role linking schools, community organizations, and families - we think a broader partnership with the YMCA could serve as a critical conduit for building nationwide distribution and uptake of Mapping Youth Journeys. Junior high after school programs are identified as a key component of the YMCA's nationwide youth development initiatives. We also foresee the National Geographic Society and the National Council for Geographic Education as potential long-term partners in sharing Mapping Youth Journeys nationwide in Phase II, given their prominence in geography education in the US, and experience in disseminating geography education programs and activities nationwide.
We are currently pursuing several funding opportunities to support Phase II. In October 2008, we submitted a proposal to the MacArthur-funded Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC) Initiative's 2008 Digital Media Learning Competition. We have proposed a 1-year project to develop, implement, evaluate, and begin disseminating Mapping Youth Journeys technologies and learning activities ($117,000; July 1, 2009 - June 30, 2010). We expect to learn the results of this proposal in February 2009. Based on a pre-proposal submitted in November, we have been invited to submit a full proposal for the Spencer Foundation's Initiative on Civic Learning and Civic Action. We are proposing a 3-year project to develop, implement, evaluate, and disseminate the full 3 unit version of the Mapping Youth Journeys ($315,000; September 15, 2009-September 14, 2012). We will submit this proposal in early January 2009, with an estimated notification date in July. If our planning/ pilot project suggests that Google's mapping interface is an appropriate interface for the online geovisualization activities of Mapping Youth Journeys, we expect to also target the Google Foundation's Geo Challenge Grants, which fund 1-year initiatives up to $100,000.
References
Dennis, S. 2006. Prospects for qualitative GIS at the intersection of youth development and participatory urban planning. Environment and Planning A 38 (11):2039-2054.
Dewey, J. 1966 [1916]. Democracy and Education. New York: The Free Press.
Elwood, S. 2004 Experiential learning, spatial practice and critical urban geographies. Journal of Geography 103(2): 55-63.
Esnard, A., M. Gelobter, and X. Morales. 2004. Environmental justice, GIS, and pedagogy. Cartographica 38 (3/4):53-61.
Glaser, B. and Strauss, A. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory. Chicago: Aldine.
Pain, R., Kindon, S., and Kesby, M. 2008. Participatory action research approaches and methods: Making a different to theory, practice and action. In Kindon, S., Pain, R., and Kesby, M. (Eds), Participatory Action Research: Connecting People, Place and Participation. London: Routledge: pp.26-32.
Mohan, J. 1995. Thinking local: service-learning, education for citizenship and geography, Journal of Geography in Higher Education 19(2): 129-142.
Perkins, C. 2007. Community mapping. The Cartographic Journal 44 (2):127-137.
Putnam, R. 1995. Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital. Journal of Democracy 6 (1):65-78.
Turner, A. 2006. Introduction to Neogeography. Sebastapol, CA: O'Reilly Media.
| Core Project | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | PI (Summer 2009) | 9222 |
| 2 | Co-PI (Summer 2009) | 6389 |
| 3 | Research Assistant (Spring 2009) | 5037 |
| 4 | Research Assistant (Summer) | 5494 |
| 6 | Tuition (RA, Spring 2009) | 3070 |
| 5 | Benefits | 5130 |
| 7 | Supplies | 658 |
| 8 | Core project total: | $35000 |
| Project Extension | ||
| 9 | Research Assistant (Fall 2009) | 5037 |
| 10 | Benefits | 670 |
| 11 | Tuition | 3070 |
| 12 | Computer equipment for youth activities | 6223 |
| 13 | Extension Total: | $15000 |
Items 1 and 2: Summer salary for PIs, Sarah Elwood (four weeks) and Katharyne Mitchell (two weeks) to support work on the core project during summer 2009. The PIs have 9-month academic-year contracts; this budget item allows for their participation during the summer months.
Item 3, 4, and 5: Compensation for one graduate research assistant for the core project including 3) salary for work conducted during Spring Quarter 2009 (20 hours/week), 4) salary for 240 hours of work conducted during Summer 2009, and 5) tuition for Spring Quarter 2009.
Item 6: Total benefits costs for all personnel in Core Project period (Faculty, 24.1%; Graduate Assistant Academic Year, 13.3%; Graduate Assistant Summer Hourly, 12.7%).
Item 7: Laptop computer to be used by graduate research assistant for development and testing of mapping interface and learning activities. PIs will use their university-issued computers.
Item 8: Core Project Total
Item 9, 10, and 11: Compensation for one graduate research assistant for the project extension, including 3) salary for work conducted during Fall Quarter 2009 (20 hours/week), 10) benefits (13.3%), and 12) tuition for Spring Quarter 2009.
Item 12: Computer equipment for a pilot implementation of Mapping Youth Journeys activities with youth participants in Seattle YMCA Community Learning Center programs (5 laptop computers to be used in pairs by participating youth, 1 portable hard drive for offsite backup of student-created files). This equipment will be retained by the PIs for ongoing Mapping Youth Journeys activities undertaken in Phase II of this initiative
Item 13: Project Extension Total
Richard asked Teresa Bulman of the Oregon Geographic Alliance about her experience with the Newspapers In Education Program. She replied, "Beginning in 1994, we had an excellent relationship with The Oregonian. Our TCs [Teacher Consultants] wrote the material, the Oregonian did the layout and printing, and then the Oregonian distributed the insert to schools throughout Oregon and Southern Washington (along with copies of the newspaper) during Geography Awareness Week. Teachers had to submit requests for the insert, and ours was very popular.
In 1994, they printed about 5000 copies; it was so successful that by 2007, they were printing 50,000.
They started to cut back their Newspapers in Education division in 2003, but promised us that they would keep our insert until the bitter end because it was the largest in terms of pages and distribution. Unfortunately, the bitter end came earlier this year when they closed the division.
We went ahead and printed 20,000 copies on our own this year. The copies were cheap to get ($2100 for 20,000) but very hard to distribute. I don't think we'll do it again on our own.
Newspaper deadlines are hard to meet unless you are prepared. I would usually get proofs about 24 hours before they went to press - hardly time to do a really good job. Other than that, things went smoothly while they lasted.
Hope this helps. If you have specific questions, let me know."
Meghan received the following information from Dana C. Twight, of the Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer, about the Newspapers In Education Program.
One Time Article
Weekly Programs
Tabular
A motion to authorize the expenditure of $400 for a one-time article in the Sunday edition of the Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer for January 4, 2009 was made by Richard and seconded by Heidi. The motion passed unanimously. Meghan offered to coordinate the effort.
Richard presented a draft contract with Allan Cartography for creating the base map for the giant Washington State map. Per Article VIII §2 of the WGA Bylaws, this part of the meeting is closed to the public. After discussion, a motion directing Richard to transmit the revised draft of the contract to Allan Cartography was made by Tim and seconded by Meghan. The motion passed unanimously.
Meghan and Pat offered to start working on a set of activities for the giant Washington State map.
Heidi offered to look at Ivey Performance Marketing as a possible printer of our giant Washington State Map.
Participation in the next year's giant traveling map program (Europe) would require a one-year lease at $7,000. After a discussion of the costs and benefits, the board chose to take no action.
Meghan and Mary will report on GAW activities at the next regular meeting.
The board chose July 6-10 (M-F) for the 2009 Basic Summer Institute. This institute will be modeled after the previous two Summer Institutes held in 2007 and 2008, using feedback from these institutes and the experiences of the Alliance membership to improve on the program. The Institute will once again take a broad-based approach to geography education by welcoming educators from all grade levels and emphasizing both physical and social sciences in the context of environmental geography. The format of three days in the classroom and two days in the field has proven popular and will be followed again. Meghan will look at getting 400-level undergraduate credits for our Basic Summer Institute.
An Advanced Summer Institute will be offered August 5-7 (W-F) as a reward for being a good Teacher Consultant. The 2009 Advanced Institute is still being planned due to unforeseen difficulties. First, the original plan of traveling to Ecuador was not possible under the present grant guidelines. Second, our best candidate to coordinate a Summer Institute in Eastern Washington, Gina Bloodworth, has moved to the east coast. We are investigating alternative venues, with the potential of having a Summer Institute at Islandwood on Bainbridge Island, another National Geographic Education Foundation grant recipient. Venues suggested were Islandwood and Sleeping Lady Mountain Retreat.
WGA is interested in hosting an event in conjunction with the 2009 NG Live! Lecture series.
Series 1
| Day | Date | Topic |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday | February 2 | Army Ants, Orchids, and Dancing Frogs |
| Sunday | February 22 | Open Heart, Open Mind |
| Monday | March 23 | Celtic Heart, Celtic Soul |
| Monday | April 13 | Secrets of Shangri-la |
| Monday | May 11 | Borneo: Paradise Under Siege |
Series 2
| Day | Date | Topic |
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday | February 3 | Army Ants, Orchids, and Dancing Frogs |
| Monday | February 23 | Open Heart, Open Mind |
| Tuesday | March 24 | Celtic Heart, Celtic Soul |
| Tuesday | April 14 | Secrets of Shangri-la |
| Tuesday | May 12 | Borneo: Paradise Under Siege |
The April dates were eliminated due to a conflict with Spring Vacation. May 12 was eliminated, as the speaker will be at the Explorer's Circle event. The board's consensus was for the Borneo: Paradise Under Siege program of May 11 presented by Mattias Klum.
Tim will complete and submit our Alliance Annual Report 2007-2008 by December 31, 2008. In addition, an extension request will be submitted on our unspent funds. Tim will circulate copies of the reports to board members for their review and comment before submitting the report to the NGS.
Richard mentioned that Midway Elementary School might be a candidate for a painted giant world map.
The next regular meeting of the WGA Board of Directors will be held on Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. in the home of Richard Kennedy and Heidi Morgan, 18825 6th Avenue SW, Normandy Park, Washington.
Respectfully submitted,
/ss/ Richard T. Kennedy
Richard T. Kennedy
Secretary
Approved January 13, 2009