Twenty-six students from nine schools participated in this year’s RCGeo (Robert College Geography Workshop), held on April 20-21. During the event participants had two complete two field-work assessments: A fieldwork examination and a multimedia test. In the fieldwork assessment, students were taken to a field in Arnavutköy and given a booklet containing the map of the region and some information. They were given 15 minutes to collect data in different locations. They then took an exam about the field, supporting their claims in the open-ended questions testing analysis, synthesis and evaluation with the data they had gathered through their observations. The data collection proved to be a lot of fun and was a new experience for all involved. In the multimedia test, students had to answer 40 multiple choice questions, some of which were interdisciplinary and all of which included media of some kind, be it a video or a photo. The top three students, based on their grades on the assessments, received medals. The event also included a panel talk.
Now it its second year, RCGeo aims to move geography education forward by introducing interactive elements such as a “field-work assessment” to high school students, with the goals of providing an example in quality geography teaching to other schools, helping prepare students for the International Geography Olympiad (iGeo) and its Balkan counterpart (BiGeo), and promoting a geography education with more than just memorization.