UAGP-Google Alaska Initiative

The team from Google GeoEducation arrived in Fairbanks last evening and quickly discovered that fall is here and winter is just around the corner. The leaves in and around Fairbanks have turned bright yellow and red – making the hills look like an artist’s pallet of colored paints – change comes quickly, but the beauty is quite worth the pending snow and cold days ahead.

Our Alaska landscape is powerfully dynamic; change comes often, and many times abruptly. This type of palpable change is one of the many reasons we live in the far North – we love our Frontier. Alaska’s landscape, and our connection to it, is one of the reasons we are working closely with Google GeoEducation.

Today Katie (Kennedy), John (Bailey) and I met with our friends from Google to review the many components of our Alaska tour to Barrow (this evening through Wednesday afternoon), Kotzebue (Wednesday and Thursday), and Nome (Thursday and Friday). The UAGP-Google’s Alaska initiative is a collaborative program to integrate technology and geospatial tools into classrooms throughout the state. Our work this week is just the beginning of what we hope to be a long-standing program to communities throughout the state in the coming years. Working with teachers on geography and geography-related tools is a priority of the University of Alaska Geography Program (UAGP)

We held a briefing session earlier this morning for the local press – we thank all of them for coming out to speak with us. Team members provided a summary of the program’s goals and demonstrated classroom lessons that integrate Google’s many tools with regionally applicable geography-based materials. We’ll head to the airport late this afternoon and catch our flight to Barrow. Tomorrow promises to be a fun day; working with teachers and students is important and rewarding.

The UAGP-Google Alaska initiative is supported by Google, University of Alaska President Mark Hamilton, UAF Chancellor Brian Rogers, and our partners at the National Geographic Society. The Society recently chose the UAGP to be their education and outreach office for the state of Alaska, providing funding and resources for innovative K-12 teacher in-service initiatives and classroom materials.

By Mike Sfraga, University of Alaska Fairbanks