Link to Session Platform

Chairs(s):

Michael Solem, Texas State University

; Atsushi Nara, San Diego State University

Description:

In U.S. colleges and universities, geography is often considered a "stumble-upon" degree, meaning that this major only gests discovered by college students in their junior or senior year. This is mainly due to the lack of awareness about geography as a major and a lack of awareness about a geography degree opening strong career opportunities.

To work on this awareness gap, there is work to be done about the poor geography presence in many U.S. schools. This panel brings together geography and computer science educators and researchers at the high-school, college, and university levels mainly in the San Diego area. Represented instructions are the Sweetwater Union High School District, San Diego Mesa College, University of California Riverside, and San Diego State University. The panel also includes representatives from, the California Geographic Alliance (CGA), the National Center for Research in Geography Education co-headquartered at Texas State University and the American Association of Geographers (AAG).

With funding support from the National Science Foundation’s Computer Science for All (CSforALL) program these panelists established a research-practice partnership (RPP) based in California with the goal to test approaches to curriculum design and educational pathway development toward a more inclusive curriculum for geo-computational thinking in schools and college programs. RPPs are "long-term, mutualistic collaborations between practitioners and researchers that are intentionally organized to investigate problems of practice and solutions for improving district outcomes” (Coburn, Penuel, and Geil 2013).

If successful, the long-term impacts of this RPP in developing these educational pathways would be to bridge the gap between in geography awareness and knowledge between K-12 and college, as well as bridging the diversity gap in U.S. geography programs.

Non-Presenting Participants Agenda