Professional Organizations

The South Carolina Geographic Alliance (SCGA), is a professional organization run through the University of South Carolina. It is free to join, which is always a plus, and they offer multiple opportunities for members to better themselves as educators.
The SCGA "is a network of K-12 educators and university geographers using geography to improve the education of our children. We provide a variety of in-service and pre-service opportunities and events as well as providing high quality teaching materials and the building of relationships with other agencies and groups to improve geographic education." (http://www.cas.sc.edu/cege/aboutscga/about.html) Some of the pre-service opportunities they offer, Clemson University actually took advantage of this semester. They offer to come speak to Methods courses at universities to show the students how to incorporate geography into the classroom. I joined this organization because I am very passionate about geography and I believe that it should be taught at every possible moment in the Social Studies classrooms, as well as in other classes as applicable. Students today do not know much about geography or where in the world we are, literally. I believe that it is vital to their success as citizens of the U.S. to know where it is on the map as well as where the other countries are in the world. Another offering of the SCGA is that on their website, they offer a multitude of resources, including lesson plans, that teachers can use whenever they need to.
I believe it is very important to join organizations like the SCGA as an educator, not only for the resources they offer, or for the fact that it is free, but also because it shows current and future employers that I am willing and working toward bettering myself as a social studies teacher. It shows them that I want to get better at what I am doing and that I want to be the best possible social studies teacher.