AAPG Foundation Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Natural Resources in the Earth Sciences K-12

It is time to start thinking again about the AAPG's annual award of $5,000 to be given to a K-12 teacher for Excellence in the Teaching of Natural Resources in the Earth Sciences. The 2009 award, to be determined in 2008, will be given at the 2009 Annual Meeting and again will be sponsored by the AAPG Foundation. The 2008 winner is Mary Fitts of Parker, Colorado.

Each participating Society will select a local winner. The Society winners will then be submitted to their appropriate Section and the Section will choose a winner from among them. The section winners will then be submitted to AAPG Headquarters for selection of the national awardee by the Youth Educational Activities Committee. Prizes and/or recognition at the local and sectional levels would be appropriate.

The National award includes $2,500 to the teacher's school for the winning teacher's use and $2,500 for the teacher's personal use. In addition, the winner will receive an expense-paid trip to the Annual Meeting.

We hope that your Society and Section will decide to participate in this award. It is an opportunity to offer something of significant appeal to teachers in your area, to get some interaction going, and to give local recognition to a deserving teacher.

The Societies and Sections are free to choose their awardees in whatever manner they wish. However, at the National level, we will need a level playing field for judging and will ask that entries follow a specific format, using the guidelines described in the Entrant Information Cover Page and the Entry Guidelines in the Application Information page. For your convenience, all of these guidelines are included here as PDF documents and Microsoft Word (MWF) forms and may be used should you desire. You will need to add your society’s name and contact information to three of the forms (PDFs are camera-ready, MS Word files may be altered for your use).

The deadline for your submittal to AAPG Headquarters is November 1, 2008. Copies of any of the materials mentioned can be obtained from AAPG Headquarters by contacting the AAPG Foundation (918-560-2644). It will help us considerably if you will notify the AAPG Foundation who in your organization will be coordinating your award.

AAPG society affiliates must provide their candidates directly to their AAPG Section. Societies must contact their AAPG Section for their respective submittal deadline.

Teachers may apply directly to their local AAPG affiliated society; or if they do not know their local society, they should submit their entries to AAPG Headquarters by November 1, 2008 where they will be forwarded to the appropriate society for their nomination process. Local deadlines vary. Entries received too late for the current contest will be submitted for the following contest.

Submittal deadline of the Sections' winning entries to AAPG Headquarters is November 1, 2008.