Springtime for teachers can waver between exhaustion and exhilaration.
“Interestingly enough,” one educator noted in an ASCD essay on End of the Year Reflections, “I would find myself re-energized and ready to start daydreaming about my next year. What would my students be like? How could I rearrange my room? What new practices could I implement that would totally overhaul and revolutionize my instruction? My days by the pool would include scrolling Pinterest for bulletin board ideas, reading articles posted on Twitter, attending professional learning sessions, and texting my teammates about new ideas for the school year.”
Our professional development opportunities can help you find your energy and enthusiasm, and direct it to your classroom and community.
Getting started is as easy as 1-2-3!
1. GET ON COURSE
Photograph by Rebecca Hale, National Geographic
We offer three free online professional development courses: Teaching Global Climate Change, Connecting the Geo-Inquiry Process to Your Classroom, and Integrating Service with Learning Goals.
Teaching Global Climate Change: This six-session, 45-hour course is aimed at middle-school educators. The course will help educators:
- examine their own understanding of global climate change by working through activities that connect to big climate change concepts.
- modify existing activities and create new lessons about global climate change.
- develop a library of tools and resources to inform future instructional design.
- apply NGSS science and engineering practices (constructing explanations and creating models) to concepts surrounding climate change.
- analyze student thinking about climate change through video cases.
Geo-Inquiry: This six-session, 30-hour course will help educators integrate National Geographic’s Geo-Inquiry Process into their classroom. The course will help educators:
- understand the Geo-Inquiry Process and how it can be aligned with their teaching practice.
- explore skills that are integral to the Geo-Inquiry Process and cultivating the mindset of an explorer.
- prepare to implement the Geo-Inquiry Process in their instructional practice by creating a Geo-Inquiry Process Implementation Plan.
- share and reflect about their practices in a collaborative, online environment.
Service Learning: This four-session, 15-hour course is designed to help educators integrate meaningful community outreach and rigorous academic curriculum. The course will help educators:
- introduce the National Geographic Learning Framework by guiding students to develop the attitudes and skills of National Geographic Explorers.
- build background knowledge and acquire the tools necessary to facilitate successful service-learning projects with their students.
- develop an action plan that will tie service learning to curriculum goals.
These are great opportunities. But don’t take our word for it!
2. GET CERTIFIED
Spaces in the cohorts of our popular certification program fill up fast, so act quickly to enroll to be #NatGeoCertified!
Certification is open to all PreK-12 educators seeking to “teach students about the world in innovative and interdisciplinary ways.”
In the certification process, educators will
- develop new strategies for teaching about the world in innovative, interdisciplinary ways.
- cultivate an “explorer mindset” that empowers students to become change agents.
- engage with an online network of expert educators and support each other’s professional growth during the program and beyond.
This is a great opportunity. But don’t take our word for it!
3. Get a Grant!
National Geographic’s education-focused grants “aim to help educators teach people about the world and how it works, empowering them to make it a better place.”
What does a National Geographic education grant project look like? An education project:
- involves multiple participants.
- engages learners in some new way of learning, and brings about (or evaluates) some change in the learner.
- may be carried out at any scale: one classroom, an after-school program, a whole school, a group of schools or district, or an entire community.
What types of education-focused grants are available?
- Early-Career Grants. As an educator, you should consider applying for an education-focused Early Career Grant if the following apply to you and your project:
- You have been teaching for five years or less.
- You are seeking no more than $10,000.
- This would be your first experience leading a project.
- Exploration Grants. As an educator, you should consider applying for an education-focused Exploration Grant if the following apply to you and your project:
- You have been teaching for more than five years.
- You are seeking no more than $30,000.
- You can demonstrate that you have experience leading one or more projects in the past.
- Requests for Proposals (RFPs). RFPs are intended to focus our funding on addressing more specific key issue areas in science, education, and storytelling. Examples that lend themselves to education projects include:
These are great opportunities. But don’t take our word for it!