South Carolina Geographic Alliance

The South Carolina Geographic Alliance is an organization I plan on getting involved in. I think it is a great organization because it is trying to get more geography in the classrooms no matter what Social Studies class. I talked to my cooperating teacher today about the organization, and she told me she was a member. I was even more impressed with the organization after my cooperating teacher told me she was involved with it. I was very impressed with the Geofest she went to when because she got to see the Hunley submarine and learn all about it. Hearing my cooperating teacher peaked my interest even more about the organization. I think the Geofest would be a great way to expand knowledge about geography in order to teacher it in the classroom. The organization also offers other professional development besides the Geofest such as workshops and the Summer Geography Institute. The Summer Geography Institute is a great way to learn what other teachers are doing in the classrooms as well as learn new methods and strategies to teach geography to the students. Another great thing about the Summer Geography Institute is it gives each person three hours for graduate school. It is a steal to get three hours for around $300 dollars for graduate classes. The speaker gave us a lot of maps that I plan on using while doing my student teaching, especially when I get to teaching world religions by using the Middle East map. I also plan on using the maps from the CD she gave us as well. Above all I think the South Carolina Geographic Alliance is a great organization that I plan on participating in to help increase teaching abilities.