Ogden News

Dr. David Keeling, head of WKU’s Department of Geography and Geology, spent two days at Scarsdale (N.Y.) High School last week, helping students and faculty to understand how to incorporate a geographic perspective on critical social issues into the curriculum.

Organized by the Scarsdale Teachers Institute (STI), the seminar/workshop comprised three approaches to curriculum development. On Friday, Dr. Keeling gave presentations to students on water, power and politics in a number of classes, including Chemistry, World History and Social Studies. On Friday evening, he led a seminar organized by STI called Global Connections, where he presented ways to think about the role of rivers, water and the environment from a spatial perspective. The evening seminar was attended by 25 teachers.

On Saturday, he led a full-day seminar and workshop on the development of approaches to incorporating the geographies of rivers and water into the curriculum. Eight teachers from various Scarsdale District schools attended the workshop, and each teacher developed a project drawing from the material presented in the morning seminar. The group aims to coordinate these projects with Dr. Keeling for a journal article on educational strategies that discusses how to incorporate a geographic perspective on critical issues into the high school curriculum.

The STI offers planned and continuous education courses to the professional staff of the Scarsdale and Edgemont schools, teachers in other school districts, and community residents. The Institute and its teacher members endorse the principle that cooperation among autonomous groups is fundamental to intellectual growth and essential to progress in education. This is the fourth visit by Dr. Keeling to the Institute, where he has presented a geographic perspective on a variety of contemporary social and cultural issues.

Contact: David Keeling, (270) 745-4555.