Our department's Dr. Domingo recently sent this to the teachers of SEMAGNET, the network of geography teachers in southeastern Massachusetts. We reprint it here for wider sharing.
To: Geography teachers, Students of Geography, Friends of Geography
On Wednesday, April 20th we will display the Earth in the Nurses Hall at the Massachusetts State House as seen below.
The 20ft tall EarthView will once again be displayed for the public to experience the joy of geography and to go inside the giant inflatable globe and marvel at the features of our planet. We will be in Nurses Hall -- open to the public -- from 9am to 2pm.
We invite you to come to the State House – bring students as well - and we ask that you invite your state Representative and Senator to come on down and talk geography (you can find your representative through the link below). We have two bills in the State House - H.491 and S.291 (links are below) that would establish a Geography Education Commission so that we can talk about the value of geography and why we need to have more geography taught in our schools.
We are looking forward to seeing you at the State House on April 20th, just a few days before Earth Day.
Find the bill:
(The "Miscellaneous" tab indicates sponsors of each bill. If your representative or senator is a sponsor, please thank them. If they are not, they may still be supporters who missed the sponsorship requests last year. You can still ask them to support the bill.)
For a whole host of reasons, it is good to get to know your local state representatives and senators. If you do not know who they are, you can find legislators here:
You can find email addresses, field offices, phone numbers, and office numbers within the State House. You can contact them to discuss any issue that matters to you at the state level -- including geography education. Even if you do not talk to the legislator personally, the job of staff members is to let senators and representatives know what constituents care about enough to call, write or visit. Since most people do none of these things, this is a good way to make a difference.
