WUSD Geography Project Shared at Geofest Conference

John Houwers was a presenter at the 2018 Geofest that was held on the campus of St. Norbert College. Geofest is sponsored by the Wisconsin Geographic Alliance every year. It is Wisconsin’s best geographic education opportunity for K-12 teachers and the community. Students in last year’s AP Human Geography course were selected to participate in the Google Expeditions Beta project #LoveWhereYouLive created by John Houwers, Whitewater Unified School District Tech Integrator and students at Whitewater High School. Houwers shared a project created by students in Mr. Greg Stewart’s AP Human Geography Course.

Teachers gained insight into how their city’s history and geography can be understood by students by creating a Virtual Reality Tour using Google’s Tour Creator. This project can be can shared with others in Whitewater and the world. At the end of the conference, geography teachers from around the state had a firsthand look using VR headsets.

Mr. Stewart would like to thank Carol Cartwright of the Whitewater Historical Society for her time and effort in working with the students in assisting with the project. Many of the students were fascinated with the incredible photo archives collected by local historians. Students gained an appreciation of Whitewater’s past through geographic inquiry.