Discover, Connect, Adapt: Diving Into Our Dynamic Resources
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Photograph by Mark Thiessen / National Geographic
Written by Dr. Deborah Grayson
As chief education and community engagement officer, Deborah Grayson furthers the Society's mission to illuminate and protect the wonder of our world by amplifying and extending the work of National Geographic Explorers into classrooms and communities.
This article is part two of a three-part series highlighting new resources for educators this school year.
In part one of this blog series, I shared new ways to use National Geographic MapMaker. Let's keep exploring. Maps are a great starting point, but they are one step on the journey. Exploration in the classroom also means discovering new stories and ideas, connecting with National Geographic Explorers, and adapting their innovative and creative work to fit into your classroom activities. Together, these experiences help build the Explorer Mindset in ourselves as educators and in learners of all ages.
I'm excited to share the newest ways the National Geographic Society is working with educators to make exploration more accessible to learners through our Education Resource Library, virtual Explorer Classroom sessions, and a growing collection of Open Educational Resources.
National Geographic Education Resource Library
Exploration begins with a spark of curiosity. To encourage that curiosity, National Geographic Education offers a free online resource library filled with carefully curated articles, videos, maps, infographics and more. It is a searchable hub that connects educators, students and curious minds with the work of our Explorers.
You can search by subject, grade or age band, or resource type, to find content spanning geography, science, conservation and more, all rooted in the real fieldwork of Explorers around the world. Save your favorites to a personal library, then come back whenever you are ready to build a unit, a lesson, or create a moment of wonder for your students.
Check out some of the latest available resources:
Explorer Classroom
Another way to bring exploration into your classroom is to virtually meet an Explorer through the Explorer Classroom program. These free, live events let your students hear directly from Explorers from behind-the-scenes looks at their work to the stories of how they got started in their careers. Best of all, your class can ask a question in real time.
Explorer Classroom covers a wide range of topics, from wildlife conservation and documentary filmmaking to field research and exploration. This fall, students discovered the hidden lives of animals in our own backyards with urban ecologist Christopher Schell, followed ecologist Karen Gallardo Cruz as she uses GPS to study barn owls, and met wildlife filmmaker Vishal Subramanyan who shared the story of Blondie, a bobcat he's been documenting since he was 14. All of these were part of our wildly popular Wildlife Series. And there is more to come: Explorer Classroom will celebrate Halloween with cave biologist Iva Njunjić, mark Geography Awareness Week with data engineer Plinio Guzman, and venture into the Arctic with oceanographer Alli Fong and researcher Kyrin Pollock.
Open Educational Resources
Discovering a story and meeting the Explorer behind it is powerful. The next step is making that story your own, and that is where Open Educational Resources (OERs) come in. Through our "PowerED by National Geographic Society" hub on OER Commons, launched in 2024, educators can access editable versions of National Geographic Explorer content and adapt it to fit the needs of their own learners and communities. Our team works directly with Explorers and educators to develop OER materials that translate their fieldwork into classroom-ready resources.
To see what this looks like in practice, check out Fossil Forests: Finding Clues to Our Past, a four-lesson unit for middle and high school students developed with National Geographic Explorers Gabby Salazar, Ross Donihue, Nareerat Boonchai, and Markus Eberl. It begins with the story of how Guatemalan schoolteacher Oswaldo López, whose video of a forest full of petrified wood led to an international expedition. From there, students can then play a card game to explore the science careers involved, model how wood becomes stone using candle wax and a loofah, and head outside as "tree detectives" to learn how scientists identify fossil trees. The unit is made to be adapted, too. You might use the trees growing near your own school for the outdoor lesson, or create your own career cards.
From discovering a story in our resource library, to meeting Explorers in Explorer Classroom, to adapting their work through OERs, each of these tools helps build the Explorer Mindset. Together, they bring the work of National Geographic Society Explorers within reach of every classroom.