Center For Geography
Education in Oregon
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The mission of C-GEO is to improve and sustain geography education in Oregon
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The annual Center for Geography Education in Oregon (C-GEO) GeoFest conference for K-12 teachers will be Saturday, March 7, 2025 at Perrydale High School. Sessions include the screening of an award-winning documentary and a Q&A with the person it’s about; the rural-urban divide; tribal histories; Black Histories & Geographies, teaching primary source through a geographic lens, GeoTech sessions, climate education, and so much more!!
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REGISTRATION IS FREE AND INCLUDES LUNCH & PDUs!!
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New Open-Source E-Book From C-GEO |
Teaching Through Rather than About: Analyzing Black Histories and Geographies with Primary Sources is a free E-book published by OpenOregon Pressbooks.
The book’s origins stem from a series of C-GEO workshops and includes 11 secondary chapters that model lessons on teaching Black histories and geographies. Each lesson chapter explores teaching through Black histories rather than about black histories by utilizing a Black Historical Consciousness framework. The chapters also all include completed lesson plans and the lesson narrative, which provides the essential and supporting questions, featured sources, and performance tasks. The chapters conclude with ways activities can be adapted or extended and will reiterate how they are teaching through rather than about Black histories for this topic and why this is important.
To freely access the book:
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Summer 2026 Introductory Institute: Updated Student Atlas Workshop |
(JUNE 24-25, 2026)
- Pre-service & current K-12 Oregon Educators are eligible
- 30 PDUs available
- Attendees receive a copy of the Student Atlas of Oregon
- Shared lodging provided
- Lunches included
- Free to attend
Application Deadline: Saturday, February 28, 2026
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Oregon Geographic Names Board (OGNB) and Renaming Process of Derogatory Places |
The 2025 Oregon Legislature has tasked OGNB with reviewing and renaming 90 geographic place names statewide that are deemed to be racially derogatory. OGNB is the statewide naming authority that deliberates on proposals to name or rename geographic features.
On March 7th, OGNB will be presenting to the C-GEO conference about the process of naming geographic features in Oregon, and about work underway to review and replace racially derogatory place names. They are welcoming Oregon classrooms to help identify new names that rise out of local history, culture and the landforms themselves.
The naming (and renaming) process offers the perfect blend of geography, history and even civics to students and teachers to get to know their own landscapes and to work with OGNB on developing proposals. We invite a conversation about what that might look like.
They have identified 90 place names—some of which will be in your geography of interest—that meet the criteria for a racially derogatory name as specified in legislation: “insulting and derogatory to any of Oregon’s nine federally recognized Indian tribes or to any race, nationality or ethnicity.”
If interested in having your class work on this process as a service learning project, you can contact them at OGNB@ohs.org for more information.
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Explore NCGE Around the World Trips |
NCGE Around the World programs offer immersive, place-based professional development experiences that deepen geographic understanding and translate directly into classroom learning. Upcoming opportunities include:
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C-GEO Steering Committee Meeting |
The steering committee will hold its annual steering committee retreat February 14-16 at Oregon Mt. Hood Resort in Welches.
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C-GEO is on Facebook and Instagram (cgeo_oregon). If you have any photos of you and students doing distance learning geography education in the classroom and would be willing to let us post those on Instagram to promote geography education you can email the photos to caranok@wou.edu with a brief blurb of what should go in the Instagram post description.
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This issue’s feature is about C-GEO TC Allyson Hamlik. |
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My name is Allyson Hamlik, and I currently serve as an elementary Reading Intervention Teacher at a small charter school in Powell Butte, Oregon. Over the course of my career, I have held a variety of roles, including 3rd-grade classroom teacher, middle school Humanities and Language Arts teacher, and upper elementary lead teacher. I have been at my current school since 2012, where I have deeply embraced and implemented our Place-Based Education focus.
In addition to my teaching role, I am currently collaborating with another teacher, Janelle Wren, on a year + - long project to update the Student Atlas of Oregon for CGEO.
Outside of school, my life centers on family and travel. One of my greatest joys is babysitting my 3-year-old grandson once a week—something made possible by my four-day work schedule. Over the past decade, I have enjoyed visiting numerous U.S. National Parks and traveling internationally whenever possible. Upcoming adventures include a trip to Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains, as well as international travel to Italy and Iceland/England.
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What has drawn you to geography education? |
Our charter school’s strong commitment to Place-Based Education—supported through professional development and thoughtful scope and sequence planning—has been instrumental in drawing me to geography education. This approach has allowed me to naturally integrate geography across subject areas throughout my career. Witnessing students’ curiosity and enthusiasm for their local environment and the wider world continually inspires me to find meaningful ways to embed geographic learning into my instruction, even in my role as a reading specialist.
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How are you promoting geography in the classroom and beyond? |
My classroom is intentionally rich in geographic resources, including wall maps, globes, and individual desk maps that students use whenever our reading materials reference places or geographic concepts. I work with students who come with a wide range of background knowledge—from extensive experience to very little exposure to geography. This provides frequent opportunities to build essential geographic understanding while strengthening literacy skills during our reading sessions.
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What have you enjoyed about CGEO? |
My involvement with The Center for Geography Education in Oregon has been incredibly rewarding. Through CGEO, I have served as a Teacher Consultant, steering committee member, professional development institute participant, and GeoFest instructor. These experiences—and the opportunity to travel abroad—have grown directly out of my passion for geography, teaching, and collaboration with an inspiring community of educators.
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Please let the C-GEO Office geogall@pdx.edu know of any awards, special events or projects that may be of interest to TCs, and announcements. Using the web makes it easy to showcase exemplary student work or students at work. Remember that you will need to have students’ permission before posting either student work or their photos in GEOBYTES. Also be sure to inform us of changes in address, school, or email.
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