Terms of Service

This statement describes rules for members of the Society website located at www.nationalgeographic.org who register ("Community") and upload material, post comments, or provide other content ("Member Content") to the Service. The Society expects its Community members to observe the following rules ("Community Rules") on www.nationalgeographic.org and any other websites operated by the  Society, including but not limited to community.nationalgeographic.org and www.natgeo.novoed.com.  Unless you opt out, the Society may choose to share your information for additional educational opportunities  with Lindblad (Grosvenor Teacher Fellows), National Geographic Partners, LLC, National Geographic Learning, Tec de Monterrey, and The Mott Foundation.

These rules apply to United States citizens and residents. Please comply with the laws in your jurisdiction if you are participating in this program. Violations of these guidelines may result in the removal of material, comments or other Member Content or termination of a member's use of and registration in the Society Community:

Be civil. The Society encourages open and candid discussions and debates.  However, all communications should be respectful. Differences of opinion are okay; personal attacks are not. Comments or content that are violent, threatening, abusive, sexually explicit, obscene, offensive, hateful, derogatory, defamatory, or are racially, ethnically, or otherwise objectionable content will be removed.

Stay on topic. Comments, questions and contributions should be relevant to the topic being discussed. Keep in mind that this is not a place for unsolicited personal or commercial solicitation or advertising (e.g., “Win a free laptop”, etc.).

Don’t upload or post inappropriate content. If a user uploads inappropriate, pornographic or offensive, or otherwise objectionable content to the Sites, such user may be banned from the Community. Society may also edit or entirely remove such posts from any of the Services it controls.

No spam. No one likes seeing the same message posted to one or many articles, galleries or discussions.

Keep it legal. Participating in, suggesting, or encouraging any illegal activity is cause for immediate removal and termination of a member’s use of and registration in the Community.

Observe copyright and trademark law. The posting of copyrighted videos, photos, articles or other material beyond what is protected as fair use is prohibited, and Society may remove such posts from any of the Sites it controls. Do not pass off someone else’s trademark as your own.

Respect (and cite) your inspiration. You are welcome to use community posts to draw inspiration and ideas for things like the Certified Educator program as long as they are properly cited. Plagiarism is discouraged in any educational setting, including this one. If you notice that parts of your work have been copied into someone else's, please let us know by emailing community@ngs.org.

Accuracy is important. Creating multiple accounts in the Community is discouraged. If you change schools, institutions, or place of work, please update your existing Society account here instead of creating a new account. To merge your duplicate accounts, please email community@ngs.org with any email addresses you may have used to create your accounts.

Respect privacy. Do not post personal or any other information that you do not want made public and respect the privacy of other members or National Geographic employees.  

Let us know. Our Community team does monitor posts, but we may miss something. We encourage members to flag content which they feel violates any of the above Community Rules so we can review and take the appropriate action.

It’s your content. The views and opinions expressed in educator and explorer profiles as well as educator and explorer discussion posts do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Society or its partners. Please remember that any comments or content you share on this site are your sole responsibility. Do not post any Content which includes information about  minors (meaning person under the age of 18) which would make them recognizable, such as image, voice recordings, name, etc.) Content in the community should not include student faces. You are permitted to show students feet, hands, and the backs of their heads.

In addition, Community members are also required to read and abide by the complete Terms Of Service of nationalgeographic.org, and persons who post User Content on National Geographic channels on social media services are expected to follow the complete terms of service of those respective services. For information about the Society’s privacy policy, refer to www.nationalgeographic.org/privacy-policy/. Society reserves the right (but assumes no obligation) to delete, move, or edit any User Content that the Society considers unacceptable or inappropriate, whether for legal or other reasons, on any of the Sites controlled by Society. “User Content” means material Community members upload, comments they post, or other content that Community members provide to the Community.  Conduct by any user that, at the sole discretion of Society, restricts or inhibits any other user of the Service from using or enjoying the Service will not be permitted on any of the Services controlled by Society. Society reserves the right to refuse access to the Service under its control or revoke Community membership to any user for any reason, including, without limitation, a reasonable belief that the user in question has violated these Community Rules, the Terms of Service, any other operating rules posted on the Service, or any of the copyright or trademark laws of the United States.

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