November 15-21, 2009
Get Lost in Mapping: Find Your Place in the World
Maps are all around us. New technologies like sophisticated satellite imagery and geographic information systems (GIS) have taken maps out of atlases and into the palm of your hand. Discover maps where you never expected to find them—GPS devices, online sites, news broadcasts, social networking, and maybe even your own phone.
Geography Awareness Week 2009 explores the world through mapping. Find your continent in giant tile maps, find your country in political outline maps, find your local area through community mapping tools like FieldScope and find your place in the world!
Teachers, take advantage of National Geographic’s Geography Action! program. This year, your students can build a free wall-sized map of Europe or America right in their own classroom.
At home, get in the sprit of adventure and discovery by tuning into National Geographic Channel's Expedition Week, starting November 15.
Launched in 1987 by presidential proclamation, Geography Awareness Week is held the third week of each November, promoting the importance of geography education in the United States. Click here for more background on Geography Awareness Week.
Join the My Wonderful World campaign to celebrate geography year-round. Sign up in the blue box to the right to receive a free monthly newsletter filled with games, news, and events; and check out My Wonderful World's Geography Awareness Week Blog-a-thon.
And try our Google Earth geo-tours to take a virtual journey around the globe.
Too often, people only think about maps when they want to get away. Don't wait for your next vacation to break out a map! Maps allow you to explore the world without leaving the comfort of your home.
Activities
- Download a free wall map for the family room or your bedroom and try this set of activities for all ages.
- Head to a National Park or nature center near you; this map from the National Environmental Education Foundation will help you find one. Then, create your own map of the park you visited.
- Test your knowledge of map words and shapes with this newspaper quiz and crossword puzzle.
- Travel to Tibet, Paris and London with video clips from Toot & Puddle, the new National Geographic cartoon for kids that encourages exploration and adventure.
- Check out our list of the Top 10 Ways to Celebrate Geography Awareness Week and post more ideas of your own!
- Join bloggers across the Web for the Geography Awareness Week Blog-a-thon. Check out news, stories, pictures, and more every day.
Mapping has come a long way since the days of pull-down classroom maps and coloring in countries. Today, students use GIS technology on computers or hand-held devices, and teachers engage them through real-time connections with experts, field experiences, and hands-on exercises.
Activities
- Download giant tile maps that give students new perspectives on animals, environments, tourism, and energy in Europe and the Americas.
- For younger students, National Geographic offers a companion teachers' guide and poster to the new animated series about travel, Toot & Puddle. Contact us today to receive a free copy by mail.
- For older students, ESRI offers Geography Awareness Week-themed GIS lessons.
- Geography Awareness Week is also the time when we celebrate International Education Week, a program of the U.S. Departments of State and Education. Check out the IEW website for geography quizzes, a map of IEW events occurring around the world, and a photo gallery.
- National Geographic's map collections provide a basis for students and teachers to interact with the world, and each other. Find maps for your instructional activities or explore an online collection of National Geographic cartography.
- Whether you're a geography, social studies, science, literature, or general studies teacher, you'll find this new 21st Century Skills Map indispensable for integrating geography into the curriculum at all grade levels.
- Even if you can't make it to Washington, D.C., for National Geographic's Terra Cotta Warriors exhibit, you can still take students to ancient China with the TCW Teachers' Guide.
- Connect with a GeoMentor to help youth explore where mapping technologies can take them.
- Engage your class in a mapping project with students in another country through ePals.
- Check out the Geography Awareness Week Blog-a-thon for daily classroom discussion starters.
GIS Day, celebrated November 18, highlights the geospatial applications that are making a difference in society and changing the ways we see and shape the world. Check out interactive videos and geo-tours that bring these innovative technologies to life with the click of a button.
Activities
- Watch a fascinating five minute video that explains how today's geospatial revolution is changing everything from shipping to driving, from warfare to humanitarian care.
- See the world in new ways: Experience the power of geovisualization by taking one of our Google Earth tours.
- Find a GIS Day event near you and learn more about geospatial technologies.
- Try a hand at real geographic analysis: Check out Geography Awareness Week-themed GIS activities from ESRI.
- Explore global trends with interactive maps from National Geographic EarthPulse.
- Share perspectives on map apps with other techies by participating in the Geography Awareness Week Blog-a-thon.
You don't have to be a cartographer to help put geography on the map. Anyone can become a map activist through a range of efforts—from lending your voice to getting involved.
Activities
- Join the thousands who have signed on to the My Wonderful World campaign calling for more geography in schools to "give kids the power of global knowledge."
- Share our list of the Top 10 Ways to Celebrate Geography Awareness Week with a friend, download the logo, and find more ways to promote Geography Awareness Week in the Media Center.
- Become a GeoMentor: Teachers and geography/GIS professionals can team up to connect students to the excitement of modern mappingÉand maybe even introduce them to a career.
- Learn more about geo-literacy—the ability to reason about the world to make personal, professional, and civic decisions—and find ways to help.
- Join a conversation with map activists across the web by participating in the Geography Awareness Week Blog-a-thon.
