NAGT's On the Cutting Edge Professional Development Program

NAGT's core professional development program includes workshops, webinars, conferences, online resource collections and other efforts that support geoscience educators. These activities provide opportunities for faculty to learn more about pedagogy, to share their classroom and professional experiences and teaching materials, and to discuss what works and what's needed in geoscience education.

This program is run in collaboration with SERC and builds on the legacy of the original NSF-funded program including many of its program elements as well as its design philosophy and workshop model.

Professional Development Events ↓


On the Cutting Edge Professional Development Opportunities & Resources

EER logo circle Earth Educators' Rendezvous

Annual conference aimed at improving undergraduate Earth education. Events will include workshops, oral and poster sessions, plenary talks, and working groups.


Commuter Train thumbnail Traveling Workshops Program

The NAGT Traveling Workshops Program brings national leaders in geoscience education to your campus or regional event to help faculty develop stronger courses or departments or a mixture of both.


early career circle Early Career Geoscience Faculty

These workshops, for tenure-track early career faculty, include sessions on effective teaching strategies, course design, establishing a research program in a new setting, working with research students, balancing professional & personal responsibilities, and time management.

Teach the Earth circle image Teach the Earth

Teach the Earth is a portal to thousands of resources from dozens of Earth Education website Resources include classroom activities, course descriptions and syllabi, information about pedagogical strategies, topical collections, and more.


NAGT webinar circle small NAGT Supported Webinars

The NAGT supports numerous webinars that vary in topic depending on the collaborating program or project. You can register for upcoming webinars or browse the past webinar archives by clicking here.


Review Process Logo Activity Review

NAGT coordinates regular peer review of community and project contributed teaching materials. This process identifies a collection of exemplary teaching materials that are a great starting point when looking for new activities to add to your classes.

Sponsored & Topical Events

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Geoscience Education Research

Participate in or explore resources from in-depth workshops and webinars devoted to Geoscience Education Research (GER).

NAGT Logo Circle Color NAGT Sponsored Workshops, Sessions, and Events at Conferences

NAGT supports a number of workshops throughout the year at various conferences that differ in size and scope. Request to have NAGT sponsor your session or event.

Workshops at GSA » Workshops at AGU »

ngss globe 100 Implementing the Next Generation Science Standards

The NAGT supports workshops, webinars, and discussions to help implementation of the framework for K-12 science education, the foundation for the Next Generation Science Standards.


Professional Development Events from NAGT and beyond

NAGT's On the Cutting Edge events include a broad range of topics from preparing for an academic career to teaching energy awareness and teaching about risk and resilience. You can view upcoming events from this program as well as from NAGT's sponsored project below.

There is also a rich archive of information from Over 400 Past Events »

Upcoming Events

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Information Type: Event

Theme: Teach the Earth

Sponsoring Project


In fulfilling its vision and mission, NAGT promotes, provides, expects and endorses a professional and respectful atmosphere and values a diversity of views and opinions at NAGT supported events and programs. All NAGT meetings and events participants are expected to abide by the NAGT Code of Conduct, which applies in all venues, events, and on-line forums associated with NAGT. Please read the full NAGT Code of Conduct Policy for details.

NAGT and SERC now jointly lead the On the Cutting Edge Program and collaborate on the management and continued development and funding of the now branded NAGT's On the Cutting Edge program. NAGT has expertise in geoscience education research, student learning, and faculty professional development and an established leadership structure with capacity to identify and lead programming in response to community needs. SERC possesses technology infrastructure and has expertise in strategies for implementation of professional development programming, development of websites through community contributions, and project management.

NAGT's Professional Development Program Committee is responsible for the management of the professional development activities and the website content, including peer review of teaching activities. The committee determines workshop offerings, appoints workshop conveners, and creates committees to manage other activities. They are responsible for the ensuring that the workshop offerings in aggregate address the needs and priorities of undergraduate geoscience education and for the quality of the individual activities. The committee was established in an MOU between NAGT and the NSF-funded On the Cutting Edge project leadership. Committee members come from NAGT leadership and the former On the Cutting Edge PI Team. The planning committee identifies or endorses the leadership of all activities undertaken by the On the Cutting Edge program.

The Teach the Earth Website Committee oversees stewardship of the Teach the Earth website and reports to the NAGT Professional Development Program Committee. Its members come from a variety of groups within NAGT that use, update, and manage the website. NAGT is responsibile for the Teach the Earth (TTE) website which is managed by SERC to provide access to the full set of resources within scope. NAGT maintains a reviewed collection of teaching activities within TTE that form the NAGT collection of exemplary teaching activities and are branded as such on the activities. NAGT also maintains a reviewed collection of sites that are exemplary resources for geoscience educators and these are also branded as such. The On the Cutting Edge collection is the part of TTE that contains content derived from the original NSF funded program as well as new content derived from the activities managed or sponsored by the current On the Cutting Edge program.