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Institutions | Training | Online Education | Papers / Articles
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The History and Application of GIS in K-12 Education
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GIS and Education
History
Geographic Information Systems and public K-12 education first experienced a taste of unity in 1992 with the publication of a paramount article by Robert Tinker, now of the Concord Consortium. Tinker's work exposed the possibilities of representing data6 with digital maps in many curricula. He described the power, flexibility and intrigue that maps offered to 4 th , 5th, and 6 th grade students studying various aspects of the environment as a part of the KidNet Project. Tinker also describes the significance of kids "Ground truthing" data, whereby students, using a map, verify the attribute data of a map or satellite image. He suggested that these data confirmations make the processes of ground truthing and mapping "alive and immediate, providing motivation… for mastering experimental techniques, and for pursuing detailed investigations of interactions". Furthermore, Tinker noted "GIS software provides a critical link between the immediate and personal level of field observation and global effects and concerns" (Tinker, 42).
Trials and tribulations of GIS in K-12 Education
In their 1996 study of GIS and K-12 learning, Audet and Abegg corroborated many of Tinker's comments. They offer a few observations key to learning GIS in the classroom, including the ability for teachers to differentiate and hierarchically categorize problem-solving styles of students. They also documented the significant role that GIS terminology and concepts play in the acquisition of GIS skills. They continued by adding "GIS supports problem-solving, but is difficult to predict [consistent achievement]". These findings and others seem to suggest that GIS is, at the proper developmental level, an effective tool for the instruction of students for data analysis.
Many other distinct advantages of GIS technology exist for K-12 students. Spatial literacy and geographic competence, defined as the ability to recognize the location or topology of map points and attributes, are two such advantages. Interpersonal skill development fostered through cooperative grouping and an enhanced "sense of existence of the wider world" often follows from the proper implementation of GIS instruction. Finally, the understanding of scale and resolution seems to be a critically important task for students, most readily nurtured through the use of GIS (Mackaness, 1994).
Standards for Excellence
A leading advocate of GIS in K-12 education has been the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA). In a report to the ESRI User's Conference of 1998, Palladino, NCGIA's Education Project Manager, outlined the challenges and benefits of GIS in K-12 classroom. Among the positives he suggests that now there are easier, more cost efficient methods for obtaining GIS software, hardware, and data sets. Among the challenges, Palladino cites an unequal distribution of computing resources among schools, and a lack of pre-service teacher training that includes spatial literacy, non-traditional teaching techniques, and computer skills training (Palladino, 1998; Palladino, 1994). The efforts of the NCGIA are worth noting, as it is one of the few organizations that have attempted to establish and promote a scope and sequence of Geography and GIS Education, with their Core Curriculum materials. Additionally, NCGIA is facilitating the development of the Secondary Education Project (SEP), a curriculum designed to develop and pool instructional materials and disseminate them through teacher workshops (NCGIA SEP, no date). Similar efforts have been undertaken by the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) to create a standardized GIS curriculum. However, this curriculum is actually intended for GIS practitioners (Obermeyer & Onsurd, no date).
Conferences
The development of any field within academia or industry is typically marked by a surge of professional meetings and conferences. Geographic Information Systems in8 education is no different. In January of 1994, the first annual conference on the pre-college educational applications of Geographic Information Systems was held at the National Geographic Society. Heralded as EdGIS, the conference was a great success and has grown substantially each year with participants from education, the cognitive sciences, geography, GIS, remote sensing, government, and industry. EdGIS has a substantial research component, where the task of GIS education has been subdivided to allow for greater depth of inquiry. These educational subdivisions fit into a simple framework of pedagogical issues, curriculum issues, software issues, and cognitive issues (EDGIS '96, 1996).
In addition to EDGIS, there are several other formal proceedings relevant to GIS in Education. The First International Conference on GIS Education (GISED '98), GIS Education: A European Perspective (EUGISES '98), and the Interoperability for GIScience Education (1998) all indicate a formalization of GIS and its significance to education at both the K-12 and collegiate levels (NCGIA, 1999).
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