Online Professional Development

In 2012, Geography: Teaching with the Stars (Stars) was developed by the Grosvenor Center for Geographic Education. It is a web-based professional development series.

Each program offers an in-class demonstration by an exemplary teacher, commentary on teaching strategies by a mentor teacher, and a content enhancement/enrichment segment, all on current issues with strong geographic dimensions. 

These programs were funded by a consortium, including the United States Department of Education, several foundations including the NGS Education Foundation, the Sid W. Richardson Foundation, and the Dodge Jones Foundation. Several State Alliances for Geographic Education joined the center in the development and use of these programs. The production work was carried out by the Agency for Instructional Technology in Bloomington, Indiana.

In 2017, GCGE expanded on Stars and developed a new program called Project Geography Online (Project GO). Project GO provides Texas teachers with the ability to access free online professional development in geography. 

Four programs are now available as an expansion of our online professional development series, “Geography: Teaching with the Stars.” Instead of bringing the camera into the classroom, this new video series focuses on a Virtual Professional Learning Community (VPLC) of geography teachers. 

Four interdisciplinary teaching modules were developed and are the focus of Project GO: water resources, tornado alley, urban heat islands, and precision agriculture. Each module contains two to three lessons and is constructed as a problem-based learning scenario in which students use geographic and scientific knowledge, math, and geospatial technology to solve real-world issues. The geospatial technology included is simple but useful, including Google Earth, Google Maps, and ArcGIS Online.