This research project focused on food access and its implications for food security and food justice in Newport News’ Southeast Community, a neighborhood marked by high levels of food insecurity and decades of racial segregation and economic divestment. Objectives were threefold: (1) to map the complex socio-spatial networks of food access in a region characterized by high levels of food insecurity; (2) to identify core barriers to food access in the study area, and to better understand how, exactly, these barriers affect food security; and (3) to use this understanding to identify potential policy solutions that could improve local and regional food access and food security.

Presentation of list of resources available to educators through the Virginia Geographic Alliance, National Geographic, and New American History Project

Presentation by Mary Finley-Brook is on climate justice and the research work she has done in Newport News.  The economically depressed south end of Newport News is particularly vulnerable to environmental toxins from the nearby shipyard, coal terminal, and interstate highway that transects their neighborhood.

Summary report of a three-day event in which teachers participated in both classroom instruction and a field experience that focused on urban geography topics such as city models, resiliency in the midst of climate change and deindustrialization, climate justice, and 21st century urban renewal projects.

Summary of three-day event for AP Human Geography teachers. Topics included sense of place, location, sequent occupancy, infrastructure development, eminent domain, ethnic identification, urban planning, technopoles; skills such as formal observation, data collection, landscape analysis, speculation and spatial analysis; and processes such as diffusion, urbanization, revitalization, acculturation, immigration, and integration.

Presentation by Melina Patterson on urban geography topics and shared the results of some of her latest research dealing with issues of race, ethnicity, segregation, redlining, revitalization and gentrification in Richmond VA.