GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION
How place shapes who we are.
The goal of Gray Family Foundation’s Geography Education is to foster a sense of place for children, youth, and educators in their local and global community. Through our grant program, we hope to prepare students to be active stewards of Oregon’s communities and natural environments.
Geography Education helps students understand the world from spatial and ecological perspectives, including the interdependency of natural, built, technological, and social aspects.
Our grants support programs that create opportunities for greater connections to and understanding of place, and projects that align with our priority objectives:
- Improve students’ practice of geography skills, tools, and perspectives
- Support interdisciplinary instruction of Geography as a foundation for instruction in other subjects
- Increase student participation in geography learning experiences, with a focus on those that reflect all voices and cultures impacted by Oregon’s geography.
Current Grants and Opportunities
Geography Education Grant Program
2025 Geography Education Grant Program Update
We will not be offering a formal competitive grant cycle for Geography Education in 2025. We are excited about several projects we are supporting over the next several years and are planning to use those programs with guidance from our Geography Education Advisory Committee to help inform the next phase of this grant program.
If you are an educator looking for support for a geography education related project, we encourage you to check out the funding and professional development opportunities with the Center for Geography Education at Portland State University.
If you have an off cycle project or organization we should be aware of, please reach out to our Senior Program Officer, Nell Tessman, at ntessman@grayff.org. We are especially interested in projects and programs engaging K-12 students and educators in geography education opportunities.
HOW WE'VE HELPED
Since 2014, our Geography Grants have been used in many creative and impactful ways by our grantees, including:
Teaching about people, place, and space
Increasing student capacity for systems thinking
Promoting outdoor & experiential learning
And More!
Who should apply?
Applicants for a Geography Education grant should be organizations seeking to fund programs and projects that give K-12 students access to geography experiences beyond the classroom, ideally taught in tandem with, or integrated into, other subjects. These could include K-12 educators, community-based organizations, individual schools, or school districts.
Through our Geography Education Program, Gray Family Foundation will award grants to projects that align with our priority objectives:
- Improve students’ practice of geography skills, tools, and perspectives;
- Support interdisciplinary instruction of Geography as a foundation for instruction of other subjects;
- Increase student participation in geography learning experiences, with a focus on those that reflect all voices and cultures impacted by Oregon’s geography.
Our Grant Critera
- Community-led and informed projects directly accountable to their communities.
- Programs that align with Gray Family Foundation’s statement on equity, diversity, and inclusion.
- Groups that demonstrate expertise or lived experiences in content areas specific to the proposed project.
- Needs for dedicated staff time toward the proposed project/program.
- Financial support to program partners essential to ensuring programming is reflective of the community.
- Plans for identifying and securing additional funding for the program.
- Activities outside of our grant program’s priorities.
- Capital campaigns, site improvements, or acquisitions of land.
- Purchases or activities that occur prior to the grant decision.
- Deficit funding or the elimination of operating deficits.
- Annual fund appeals or endowment funds.
- Religious activities.
- Grants or loans to individuals.
Featured Grantees
Our grant recipients use funds to help students develop a command of geographic tools and perspectives—a sense of place in their local and global community—which prepares them to make critical decisions about the natural and built environment.
Center for Geography Education
A Nexus for Geography Education Helps Oregon Teachers—and Their Students—See the World Picture this: 20 fifth graders are running in the school gym, but instead of sneakered feet on glossy maple wood, they’re in bare and socked feet running on top of an enormous 14- by 21-foot durable fabric map.
Funding Area:
Geography Education
Location:
Multnomah County
Native Education Program – Salem-Keizer School District
American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) students and their families gathered in a student kitchen at a Salem-Keizer School District (SKSD) high school to learn how to make sunflower cookies and berry compote from an Indigenous chef.
Funding Area:
Geography Education
Location:
Marion County
Friends of Tryon Creek
Teacher workshops at Tryon Creek State Park inspire fun new ways to meet the latest science standards.
Funding Area:
Teacher Professional Development
Location:
Clackamas County
Confluence
Wherever you are in the Northwest, you’re standing on Indigenous lands.
Funding Area:
Geography Education
Location:
Statewide
