The culminating activity for the We the People: The Citizen & The Constitution program is a simulated congressional hearing in which students “testify” in front of a panel of judges acting as members of Congress. In addition to the simulated congressional hearings, some teachers, schools and districts choose to participate in the State and National Finals or the National Invitational. These additional learning opportunities can be exciting to many students and serve to further their understanding of the constitution and government.

Hearings

During the simulated hearings, students have the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of constitutional principles through their testimony in front of a panel of judges. The entire class, working in cooperative teams, prepares and presents statements before a panel of community representatives acting as a congressional committee. Students then answer follow-up questions posed by the committee members. They will have the opportunity to evaluate, take and defend their position on a variety of historical and contemporary issues. In addition to the hands on learning experience the hearings offer, they also serve as an effective way for teachers to evaluate their student’s grasp of the material.

EarthView: World Beyond Borders

This workshop begins with a virtual field trip to EarthView, a 20-foot, inflatable globe that serves as a portable classroom for social studies, geography, earth science and more — any discipline that benefits from a global or regional perspective. The field trip will include presentations made both outside the globe and inside (drones may be involved) and on some of the continental and Massachusetts floor maps that comprise the EarthMap portion of the program.

Following the field trip, we will reflect on what we have learned from the twelve years we have spent (so far) using these large-scale maps with well over 100,000 students, educators, and the general public. Finally, we will share resources for exploring patterns and connections — human, physical and environmental — at a global scale using resources available for remote learning on flat screens. The workshop will model the use of maps to learn about the spatial dimensions of such topics as water scarcity, climate change, wildfire, migration, and both the causes and consequences of Coronavirus spread.

EarthView site, including program information, reservations, and fees: https://www.bridgew.edu/earthview

Vernon Domingo is Professor Emeritus of Geography and James Hayes-Bohanan is Professor of Geography, both at Bridgewater State University in southeastern Massachusetts. Vernon’s main areas of teaching and research have been political geography, the geography of Africa, and the geography of access to water. James has specialized in environmental geography, the geography of Latin America, and the geographies of coffee.

Both Vernon and James have long been active in the preparation of future teachers, the continuing education of in-service teachers, and advocacy for geography education. Since 2008, they have been more directly involved in K-12 education as co-coordinators of Project EarthView, bringing them into contact with thousands of students and scores of teachers each year. The two giant globes and seven National Geographic floor maps have been used by almost 120,000 geography learners to date, from infancy to infinity.

RESOURCES:

• National Council for Geographic Education
• Geography for Life — The National Standards
• This session video and slides (to be posted after November 2)
• BSU EarthView Website and Blog
• BSU Center for the Advancement of STEM Education – CASE
• EarthMap — our lending program of giant floor maps from National Geographic

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