gis in school curricula

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GIS in School Curricula

In the struggle to help students of all ages find their way in life, teachers use many tools.Some help students think, some help them acquire knowledge, some help them feel, some help

them express their understandings in ways that others can follow. No one tool can ever

accomplish all things for all students. But every now and then, a new tool appears which can

change the course of education for many students, of all ages, by introducing new ways of

thinking and seeing and working. A geographic information system (GIS) is such a tool.

Many teachers have asked for "the curriculum" to use with GIS. The answer is like a Zen

koan. The curriculum is all things, and nothing, because GIS is just a tool. It encourages both

individual exploration and long range collaborative efforts. It fosters integration of broad types

and volumes of information, yet feeds on detailed data of particular subjects or regions. The heart

of the system is robust hardware, powerful software, and special data, but the most importantelement by far is the mind of the user, and his or her ability to think creatively, query intuitively,

and work iteratively. It can help make plain the answers to urgent and powerful questions, but the

tool itself contains not a single answer.

Because of these incongruities, it is often difficult for teachers to grasp how the tool can or

should be used. What follows is a list of scenarios for thinking about incorporating the tool

within one's classroom.

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

In the elementary classroom, teachers can make very effective use of GIS. Although such

powerful technology can seem too rich for younger students, it should not be restricted solely to

the upper grades. Teachers who are not fully comfortable with GIS can still use it to great

advantage by engaging just a few capacities and exploring the local area. Much helpful

introductory work can be done even with no computer at all.

Primary teachers could help students start to learn the critical concepts of scale and

perspective through drawing the classroom by hand on paper. Once the classroom is understood

as a space, area, or region, teachers or students can draw the room within ArcView, perhaps as a

group project. When complete, students can zoom in and out at will, seeing greater or lesserdetail or clarity. Classes can add more rooms on subsequent days, and over time even construct

an entire community with different layers. Even though this may not be exactly registered to the

surface of the earth by latitude and longitude, the data will be correct internally, positioned in the

correct relative location.

GIS in School Curricula , page 1Copyright 1997, Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.


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With a scanner, teachers can put an existing city map or highway map, or even a hand-drawn

neighborhood version, into the computer as a plain image. Once inside, this map can be richly

annotated with new points, lines, and areas, each of which can also carry information about the

nature of the feature. That is, on a local map, this is the spot where Tony lives. Tony plays

soccer, likes to swim, and goes to religion class on Thursday. Where are other students with

whom Tony could go to these events? And, if the base image was geographically registered,these new points, lines, and areas will be geographically correct as well.

Registering an image is often a very simple mathematical process. Images need simply to be

accompanied by a small file indicating one control point, how much the picture is skewed, and

how many units of real space are represented by each pixel. The process of determining these six

numbers is often very straightforward, a good "real world" test for math students.

Young students can even practice the advanced skill of transformation. Given a piece of

paper with a simple 1x1-inch line drawing of a face, can they make a 2x2-inch reproduction of

it? It may help to draw a 1/2-inch grid on the face and a 1-inch grid on the target paper, in order

to provide control points. Once they have transformed a simple face, they can practice on a morecomplex outline, such as a car. When that is satisfactorily done, they can move to a larger

expansion of a simple map. In later years, students might be expected to use this same skill in

collaborating on a complex wall sized mural, a community map, or a world map.

With an already existing data network of local streets, students or teachers can create a

simple data file of street addresses and use the power of GIS to match the addresses to the map.

The computer can pinpoint the positions of student homes, special community features, even

everyday items such as trees or trash bins or light poles with burned out bulbs.

All these geographic explorations will help them learn the "where" of geography: identifying

where things are in relation to other places. Such explorations are unlimited in scope. Studentscan catalog their community by residents, businesses, facilities, or features. But they can also

explore richness surrounding them in the "what": what are particular places like?

Even young students can build, maintain, and explore legitimate databases. The location of

particular items in the school building, the counties and states identified in car license plates seen

at various spots, the home towns, states, or countries of professional athletes ... all these and

infinitely many more data sets are waiting for students to construct them. The more rich the data,

the more elaborate the explorations can grow.

MIDDLE SCHOOL

In the middle grades, students can add in the technologies of global positioning systems and

remote sensing. Understanding satellites and the gathering of general or detailed data, they can

begin exploring the rich galaxies of information now being accumulated. They can practice

triangulation within the classroom, perhaps leading classmates to mini-treasures at 3-D

coordinates through the use of latitude, longitude, and elevation. They can create mosaic images



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by generalizing commercial maps or air photos upward in tiny squares, identifying and coloring

according to land use or elevation or vegetation.

Through telecommunication, students can share data with others around the world and

explore infinitely many subjects. They can track the migration of butterflies, the impact of

storms, the foods and politics and children's issues in distant lands. They can conduct localized

water quality experiments and share the data with schools upstream and down. They can matchearthquake epicenters and fault lines and mountain ranges and cities.

With so much data available, the opportunities abound for exercising various intelligences.

Students can explore data by mapping, or tinkering with tables, or bringing data into a chart, or

all three at once. They can incorporate multimedia elements in creating their vision of a local

problem, a regional happening, or a global condition. They can craft papers which document the

evolution of a study, richly illustrated with maps, tables, charts, and pictures.

HIGH SCHOOL

In high school, the sky is the limit for uses of GIS. Students could explore topics in physical,

natural, or social sciences constantly, becoming very skilled in advanced instances of what the

younger students do. Mathematical issues could be represented visually, with tables and charts of

endless variety and content. English and language classes could explore characteristics of a place

that might influence authors to write in particular ways. Art classes could explore the varied ways

in which visual symbols are interpreted.

Outside of class, students may find valuable employment or internships with organizations

exploring social, economic, or development conditions. Very often, the adults in such

organizations lack the time or technical skills to conduct focused geographic analyses, but have aclear vision of what they want, which opens the door for long-term relationships with students.

High school is often marked by community service projects, which provide additional venues

for GIS. Helping a library develop resources for use by the public, helping a city plan new bike

paths or explore potential environmental issues, or doing independent research into the changing

character and needs of the community ... these are all worthwhile options.

ALL LEVELS

The ideal in all grade levels, of course, is for instruction style not to be constrained by limited

access to tools. However, in reality, many teachers and schools do not yet have hardware

sufficient to provide students with unlimited access. Computers may be insufficiently powerful,

or only in a lab, or only on a handful of carts that roll in to serve 30 students, or only as a single

robust machine, perhaps even just the one that the teacher has at home. So, how do teachers take

advantage of the technology when handcuffed by limited access?



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gis in school curricula

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