Kentucky Geographic Alliance Receives $50,000 Grant From National Geographic Society

November 06, 2007

Bowling Green, Ky. - For the third year in a row, the Kentucky Geographic Alliance has been awarded a $50,000 grant from the National Geographic Society to promote geography geographic literacy in schools and other venues across the state of Kentucky.

The KGA is coordinated by Dr. S. Kay Gandy in Western Kentucky University’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction and Scott Dobler in WKU’s Department of Geography and Geology.

The mission of the KGA is to provide professional development for classroom teachers and develop resource materials to promote geographic literacy in Kentucky.

The KGA will use this year’s grant from the National Geographic Society to support a GIS person to develop a series of Kentucky maps for classroom teachers and document all CATS testing data with GIS. The grant also will support a teacher institute next June at Natural Bridge State Park and several National Geographic programs, including the state Geographic Bee and the My Wonderful World campaign.

Since its inception in 1987, the KGA has adopted the task of implementing a wide range of outreach activities that have had as the ultimate goal the promotion, acceptance and appreciation for of the value of geographic literacy at the state, county and community levels.

The KGA has supported teacher professional development in geography, promoted geography at the local and state levels, been actively engaged in determining state standards in geography for the Kentucky Department of Education, functioned as part of other state based educational organizations, and provided a constant outreach to teachers, schools and organizations concerning the content and implementation of geography.

More information on the KGA is available online at http://www.kga.org/

More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you’d like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.

For information, contact Kay Gandy at (270) 745-2991.