Friends of Geography Conference Report - February 15, 1997

Introduction
The tenth anniversary conference of Friends Of Geography (FOG) was held on February 15, 1997, at Tomball High School in Tomball, Texas. The organization's goals are to enhance geographic education in grades K-12, and the promotion of the subject of geography by working with their parent organizations, Texas Alliance for Geographic Education (TAGE) and NCGE. The purpose of this conference is to advance these goals by providing a forum for the exchange of ideas, and to collaborate with colleagues who share similar interests in geography. Exhibitors provided content ranging from rain forests and global geography to travel and technology.

Sessions
During the day I was able to attend six sessions and visited numerous booths. The sessions that I attended were as follows:

The "Dance Around the World " session dealt with dances from Greece, Mexico and Africa. Unfortunately, the presenters arrived late so we were not able to observe these dances. The topic was discussed briefly prior to the completion of the session.

The "3D Coral Reef Tour" was designed to be a spatial representation of a coral reef by the use of objects that resembled fish and other reef inhabitants hanging from the ceiling to simulate suspension in the water. Their presentation was limited to welcoming us into the room and inviting us to view the exhibit. There were no materials or lecture available for the attendees.

The "Geographic Themes and Space Acquired Photography of Earth: A Winning Combination" presentation included a slide show and a thorough explanation of the slides and the geographic information that they contained. The topics included mountains, thermal characteristics of the Earth, and major rivers of the Earth. Mr. Fred Brumbaugh, our speaker from Hernandez Engineering, was kind enough to visit with me regarding information that NASA has available. Mr. Brumbaugh followed up on our discussion by e-mail and invited me to his office to obtain some of the materials that we discussed.

"The Gulf of Mexico - A Special Place", was targeted to elementary education. The speaker, Ms. Julie K. Massey, is a County Extension Marine Agent for Galveston County, sponsored by Texas A&M University. Her presentation was very interesting because she provided interactive activities that we could use in our classes. These activities included an extensive shell collection that can be made available to schools for teachers' use in the classroom, construction of headbands with sea creatures on them, and demonstrating the importance of wetlands in filtering runoff from our watersheds. She also provided an activity handbook and explained methods of implementing the activities described. This session ultimately proved to be a wonderful opportunity to enlist aid for other activities since Ms. Massey has offered to participate in Dr. Buford's Take a Buddy to Camp session in June of 1997.

"Hold On World!!" provided examples of hands-on games and music activities designed to help teachers improve the students' geographic literacy. The activities went beyond basic memorization skills and covered techniques that utilize synthesizing and evaluation methods that re-enforce the lesson material. This presentation was very enjoyable and demonstrated how easy it can be to make geography an interesting subject.

"The United States of Africa - Mission Impossible??" provided information regarding the African continent and the evolution of the borders and names of its countries. The message was that the continent could not become a union of states because of the volatile nature of the boundaries between countries. The presentation consisted of two maps on opposite sides of a sheet of paper, which were to be compared to see the evolution of these nations. The lesson contained far greater complexity than necessary by virtue of the fact that the two maps could not be observed simultaneously. The challenge in the exercise was to mentally project the image viewed on one side of the paper to the other after turning over the paper. The lesson would have had far greater value if the maps were on separate sheets of paper to allow viewing side by side. The basic lesson was inherently abstract because of the intent of the lesson, making it important that the delivery of the message be simplified. This is necessary to ensure that the complexity of the delivery does not adversely affect the outcome of the exercise. Each of the participants was given a copy of the thematic unit for this topic.

Evaluation
In general, the conference was a success. Some presentations exceeded expectations, while others were sadly lacking. Those that were less effective than expected offered their own benefits be re-enforcing the importance of good preparation, a clear objective, and an exciting delivery of the message. The always-present side benefits were a wealth of contacts made with experts who make themselves, or their resources available to those who attend their sessions. From this conference, I acquired knowledge of Internet resources from two exhibitors, one a web site for maps and the other an e-mail address for Ms. Massey. Packets of materials were given to attendees that contained numerous props and materials for geographic lesson preparation.

	This website is in no way associated with Quest Educational Foundation of Collier County, Florida that offers tutoring, mentoring and scholarships to students in Collier, County, Florida.	Visitor# 1092 since January 11, 1998 Copyright © 1998-2003 by Kathy Waites - All rights reserved