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"What We Do As the Nation's largest water, earth, and biological science and civilian mapping agency, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) collects, monitors, analyzes, and provides scientific understanding about natural resource conditions, issues, and problems. The diversity of our scientific expertise enables us to carry out large-scale, multi-disciplinary investigations and provide impartial scientific information to resource managers, planners, and other customers"

"Focusing on the K-12 community In the late 1990s, the State of Michigan founded Michigan Virtual University to support the state's economic development efforts by providing convenient and cost-effective education and training to Michigan's current and future workforce. After redefining its mission and vision in 2004, MVU now serves the K-12 education community exclusively through the Michigan Virtual School and Michigan LearnPort. As one of the largest virtual schools in the U.S., Michigan Virtual School offers more than 150 online courses, including unique courses like Chinese and CareerForward®, an online career exploration course. Michigan LearnPort brings professional development to the K-12 educational community. Hosting a broad catalog of courses and collaborative tools, Michigan LearnPort provides online learning resources and solutions for educators. MVU provides powerful and engaging online career development tools for high school and middle school students, parents and K-12 educators, including a no-cost online course called CareerForward that helps all Michigan schools meet the state's online learning graduation requirement. MVU's web-based application called myDreamExplorer® gives students an opportunity to explore different career pathways, take personal interest surveys and build a personalized education development plan. The MVU organizational values represent a set of core beliefs that continue to build a high performance team environment. These value statements serve as the foundation for MVU's vision and mission statements. MVU is committed to the following values: High standards for quality, ongoing research and the use of data to improve operational decisions; Use of innovative technologies to address persistent educational challenges; Listening to customer and stakeholder feedback to guide product and service evelopment plans; Excellence in the design, development and delivery of online educational

"My Wonderful World is a National Geographic-led campaign-backed by a coalition of national business and non-profit organizations -to expand geographic learning in school, at home, and in communities. We want to give kids the power of global knowledge. Since the campaign launched, more than 80,000 people like you have signed up to show their support. WHY IT'S IMPORTANT Geography is more than places on a map. It's global connections. People and cultures. Economics and environments. Our young people need to know geography in order to understand today's world-and succeed in tomorrow's. But they're not getting enough of it, in or out of school. A National Geographic-Roper survey shows half of young Americans can't locate world powers like Japan and India. Twenty percent can't even find the Pacific Ocean. Without geography, our children aren't ready for the world. With your help, we can make geography education a priority. Kids who understand our world today can succeed in it tomorrow.

"The Zinn Education Project promotes and supports the use of Howard Zinn's best-selling book A People's History of the United States and other materials for teaching a people's history in middle and high school classrooms across the country. The Zinn Education Project is coordinated by two non-profit organizations, Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change. Its goal is to introduce students to a more accurate, complex, and engaging understanding of United States history than is found in traditional textbooks and curricula. The empowering potential of studying U.S. history is often lost in a textbook-driven trivial pursuit of names and dates. Zinn's A People's History of the United States emphasizes the role of working people, women, people of color, and organized social movements in shaping history. Students learn that history is made not by a few heroic individuals, but instead by people's choices and actions, thereby also learning that their own choices and actions matter. We believe that through taking a more engaging and more honest look at the past, we can help equip students with the analytical tools to make sense of - and improve - the world today. For a more complete description, read the PDF A People's History, A People's Pedagogy . In 2008, with support from an anonymous donor, the Zinn Education Project distributed 4,000 free packets for teaching people's history to educators across the country. In a follow-up survey, the recipients requested more resources, which led to the creation of this upgraded website to provide teaching materials online. Read the fullreport (in PDF) on the distribution of the 4,000 packets here."

My Wonderful World is a National Geographic-led campaign-backed by a coalition of national business and non-profit organizations-to expand geographic learning in school, at home, and in communities. We want to give kids the power of global knowledge. Since the campaign launched, more than 80,000 people like you have signed up to show their support. WHY IT'S IMPORTANT Geography is more than places on a map. It's global connections. People and cultures. Economics and environments. Our young people need to know geography in order to understand today's world-and succeed in tomorrow's. But they're not getting enough of it, in or out of school. A National Geographic-Roper survey shows half of young Americans can't locate world powers like Japan and India. Twenty percent can't even find the Pacific Ocean. Without geography, our children aren't ready for the world. With your help, we can make geography education a priority. Kids who understand our world today can succeed in it tomorrow.

"Other key findings include: Respondents said science teachers play a larger role than parents in stimulating and sustaining interest in science. During the elementary school years, 70 percent of the respondents said teachers have the most influence. During high school, 88 percent said teachers do. Nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of those polled said underrepresentation exists in their company's or organization's workforce. Leading workplace barriers for the female and minority chemists and chemical engineers include managerial bias (40 percent), company/organizational/institutional bias (38 percent), lack of professional development (36 percent), little or no access to networking opportunities (35 percent), and a lack of advancement opportunities (35 percent). Nearly three-quarters (70 percent) of the chemists/chemical engineers said it's harder for women to succeed in their field than it is for men, while two-thirds (67 percent) think it is more difficult for minorities to succeed than it is for non-minorities."