Every Virginia communicty has a cultural landscape that is layered with multiple evidences of religious practices, ethnic identities, expressions of language, indigenous tradition, political values and more that provide opportunities for interpreting the ways in which human features are shown and seen and why they are so. Students can explore these local geographies through field experiences as a class or on their own. Ideas presented were mostly introduced in APHG Academies that have been sponsored by the VGA, NCGE meetings, AP Annual Conferences, workshops, and through collaboration with colleagues. This collection is intended to help get new teachers started or to move others to grow their curriculum and enhance the experiences of their students and build geographic skills by promoting the inclusion of local geographies into classrooms and through personal observation and data collection in local environments.

Every Virginia community has eonomic activity that can be used in a geography class. It could be the local work of watermen and shipping industry, extraction industry in Appalachia, paper mills, furniture outlets, tourism, energy production, technology industry, banking, chicken farms and slaughter houses. Use these opportunities to apply concepts and processes like region, landscape, agglomeration, deindustrialization, economic base, pollution, and urbanization. Ideas presented were mostly introduced in APHG Academies that have been sponsored by the VGA, NCGE meetings, AP Annual Conferences, workshops, and through collaboration with colleagues. This collection is intended to help get new teachers started or to move others to grow their curriculum and enhance the experiences of their students and build geographic skills by promoting the inclusion of local geographies into classrooms and through personal observation and data collection in local environments.

This resource demonstrates the use of census data for exploring local geographies. Not all of the html links are current, but type of useful variables for understanding local geographies can be gained. Ideas presented were mostly introduced in APHG Academies that have been sponsored by the VGA, NCGE meetings, AP Annual Conferences, workshops, and through collaboration with colleagues. This collection is intended to help get new teachers started or to move others to grow their curriculum and enhance the experiences of their students and build geographic skills by promoting the inclusion of local geographies into classrooms and through personal observation and data collection in local environments.

This resource provides links to a number of activities involving local mapping including autobiographical mapping known as a "turf map," how to get students to connections to their local geographies, mapping a school for teaching tolerance, use of historical maps of a community, and use of technology through Googe Earth. Ideas presented were mostly introduced in APHG Academies that have been sponsored by the VGA, NCGE meetings, AP Annual Conferences, workshops, and through collaboration with colleagues. This collection is intended to help get new teachers started or to move others to grow their curriculum and enhance the experiences of their students and build geographic skills by promoting the inclusion of local geographies into classrooms and through personal observation and data collection in local environments.

Through the process of acquiring geographic information, students learn the practice of asking geographic questions and developing reasoned responses. Using local geographies and/or taking students out into the community offer multipe strategies for doing geography. Ideas presented were mostly introduced in APHG Academies that have been sponsored by the VGA, NCGE meetings, AP Annual Conferences, workshops, and through collaboration with colleagues. This collection is intended to help get new teachers started or to move others to grow their curriculum and enhance the experiences of their students and build geographic skills by promoting the inclusion of local geographies into classrooms and through personal observation and data collection in local environments.

Through the process of acquiring geographic information, students learn the practice of asking geographic questions and developing reasoned responses. Using local geographies and/or taking students out into the community offer multipe strategies for doing geography. Ideas presented were mostly introduced in APHG Academies that have been sponsored by the VGA, NCGE meetings, AP Annual Conferences, workshops, and through collaboration with colleagues. This collection is intended to help get new teachers started or to move others to grow their curriculum and enhance the experiences of their students and build geographic skills by promoting the inclusion of local geographies into classrooms and through personal observation and data collection in local environments.