A Message from the President of NAGT

By David McConnell, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC

×

Provenance: In The Trenches Volume 9, No. 3 July 2019
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.

When I first joined NAGT, I did not understand what had to happen behind the scenes to keep the organization running smoothly. In serving as president and as a member of the Executive Committee for the last couple of years it is now obvious how much the success of NAGT depends on the efforts of its members. Whether they are serving in one of its many vibrant sections, working in the divisions, or participating on numerous committees, the force of so many people stepping up to volunteer is what supports this organization. That sense of community is what I value most about NAGT. I see evidence of that when hundreds of like-minded folks show up for the annual Earth Educators' Rendezvous. It is a concentrated dose of geoscience education in just five days. It is always great to participate with colleagues in the workshops, grab new ideas from the teaching demos, learn about new research findings at the talks and poster sessions, and catch up with old and new friends at the social events. I'm looking forward to attending this year's Rendezvous in Nashville, from July 15-19, and I look forward to seeing many of you there. (Come for the geoscience learning, stay for the hot chicken and country music hall of fame!)

This is an exciting time to be a geoscientist. We see evidence for the need of geoscience knowledge all around us, and it brings with it the potential to increase interest and broaden participation in our science. At the same time the nature of technology and the role of science in society is changing, creating new jobs for our graduates that didn't exist a decade ago. We can no longer just teach the same classes over and over again. We need to think about innovations and adaptations we can make to support our students as we prepare them for a rapidly evolving workforce. NAGT provides forums to discuss how we shape these new learning environments through meetings like the Rendezvous and other professional development programming and through membership-benefit publications like In the Trenches and the Journal of Geoscience Education.

Thanks for your support if you are already a member of NAGT. If you are not a member, why not join your friends and colleagues and become a part of the NAGT community today. More information on membership can be found at https://nagt.org/nagt/membership/index.html.