Geography in U.S. History
Introduction
The Texas Alliance for Geographic Education has been fortunate in acquiring educational rights to "Geography in U.S. History", a series of ten 20-minute video programs for secondary school classes in U.S. History. This further strengthens the Grosvenor Center's publications "Time and Space Convergence: A Joint U.S. History-Geography Curriculum", and "The Best of Both Worlds: Blending History and Geography in the K-12 Curriculum." These two print resources are available free of charge.
A warning. While these programs are excellent and well-produced, the series went on-air in 1991 under the direction of the Agency for Instructional Technology. The content and the educational messages are still excellent while the clothing, appearance and manner of the program hosts are 3 decades old!
"Geography in U.S. History" was produced during a period when the five themes of geography were very popular and used frequently by social studies teachers as a content organizer. Before you use any of the videos in the series check out the program guide and the introduction. This will provide a context for the combination of history and geography. Believe me, this is good material and we were lucky to gain access to the programs. My favorites are Program 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6, perhaps because of the key role played by geography in explaining "big" events in U.S. History.
Thus, my invitation to you. Use your teacher's guide and introduce "Geography in U.S. History" to your students. You will be glad you did.
- Dr. Richard G. Boehm
