American Association of Geographers American Association of Geographers

My Community, Our Earth
Geographic Learning for Sustainable Development
The underlying goal of the My Community, Our Earth (MyCOE) program is to encourage students to use geographic methods for understanding and demonstrating how a sustainable development issue affects their community and environment. Through their efforts, the program also strives to provide an opportunity for policy makers, decision makers, professionals, and the public to learn innovative ways to address local issues of sustainability; inform local, regional, and national environmental policy about real issues confronting society; ultimately bring the concepts promoted by international summits on
sustainable development “down to earth” in order to affect positive change toward sustainable development in communities and for the future; and build geographically literate generations able to use this knowledge in their everyday lives. To view the Project Gallery, visit our website at www.geography.org/sustainable.

The program has recently finished with planned activities for the first phase and is now beginning the second phase of the program. In doing so, we are committed to the original goals of the program, to continuing valuable relationships, and to building on the lessons and successes of Phase I. We are undertaking Phase II activities as a series of specific projects geared toward highly impactful outcomes for participants and communities, and focused toward addressing the respective missions and constituencies of our sponsoring organizations.

Phase II components would continue to address one or more of the following objectives

  1. support individual projects at the secondary school and university levels to advance geographic learning and to help demonstrate various approaches to sustainable development;
  2. provide students with the necessary technical resources to learn about sustainable development issues and present them to international leaders;
  3. raise awareness of the importance of geography and GIS as effective instruments for sustainable development to students, communities, policy makers, decision makers, and others;
  4. bring the concepts promoted by international global efforts such as the World Summit on Sustainable Development to local, grassroots levels; and
  5. recognize the innovation and creativity of our youth toward building a more sustainable future through exhibition of projects at important regional and international venues.

For example, the following types of specific activities given specific funding may comprise Phase II:

  • Provide electronic and digital access to resource materials
  • Translate program resource materials into multiple languages
  • Undertake a geographically limited effort to provide hardcopy resources across the “digital divide”
  • Build linkages between participant organizations, e.g. university to university ties around the theme of geographic learning for sustainable development
  • Engage with Embassies, Ministers of Education, Environment, and Science & Technology, environmental policymakers, and other government officials to disseminate lessons learned
  • Target certain youth groups and organizations with activities around geographical learning
  • Target a certain sustainable development theme with specific educational activities and focused resources around geographic learning
  • Produce reports on geographic learning for sustainable development to policymaking audiences
  • Promote geographic learning among vulnerable and underrepresented young people in engagement with their communities through informal learning channels
  • Publish the lessons learned from phase I projects and evaluate the ongoing impact of phase I activities
  • Support specific grassroots-based approaches to building sustainable communities
  • Showcase student projects at specific venues including workshops, seminars, and conferences