What Do High School Students Choose To Study If They Know GIS? Examples from the Geospatial Semester
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Keywords: GIS, spatial thinking, education, high school, geospatial
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract
Authors:
Joyce Kathryn Keranen, James Madison University
S, Paul Rittenhouse, James Madison University
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Abstract
Geospatial technologies such as GIS have a relatively small footprint in K-12 schools, and they're often used in narrow curricular applications (Earth Science, Geography). We have few examples of what students would choose to study using these tools if they had agency. However, the Geospatial Semester project in Virginia has provided such a setting where students can develop some mastery of GIS tools and techniques and then have the agency to apply them to large-scale projects of their own choosing. These projects typically occupy 4-6 weeks at the end of the school year, and many students are taking the class for concurrent enrollment credit at James Madison University.
In this presentation, we'll share a topic and scale analysis from more than 300 projects done during the 2021-2022 school year, along with example projects. We'll also explore the evolution of student projects over the nearly two decade history of the problem. Preliminary analysis shows that students are interested in phenomena at all geographic scales and the project topics tend to cluster in a few areas.
What Do High School Students Choose To Study If They Know GIS? Examples from the Geospatial Semester
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Paper Abstract