GIS Education Weekly: Understanding Open Source GIS and Digital Humanities

On and Off Campus

A bit of the GRACE interns' Calumet Visitor's Map

GRACE Program:  GRACE intern presentations on this summer's project, the Calumet-Laurium Community WebGIS, are available on YouTube in a one hour video. Via @GRACEProgram.

San Bernardino County Sun: Why UC Riverside, local students are writing life stories of veterans buried at Riverside National Cemetery - More than 1000 K-12 students from the Inland Empire, guided by 30 UCR graduate students and alumni, are compiling histories of individuals at the largest national cemetery west of the Mississippi River. The documents will ultimately be shared via a GIS app.

"GIS Gang" Leader Shares Best Practices

In September 2015 Wendy Lemke, a sixth grade teacher at Ann Arbor's St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School, launched a before school club, the GIS Gang. I shared an edited version of her blogs posts about the club's meetings last week.

This Q & A focuses on the lessons learned and offers advice that other educators working with GIS in K-12 students may find valuable. Thanks for taking the time to share Wendy!

1) If you were giving advice to other schools, would you suggest GIS be used in class or in in extra-curricular club? Why?

In my experience, GIS in education consists of two parts: data analysis and map creation. So, there is a place for GIS in both arenas.

I believe that analyzing map data is an excellent and integral part of teaching science and social studies. In addition, simple map building (pinning locations with information and images) can be used in the same way that PowerPoints are used in class. . . a creative way for students to present information. A middle school classroom is a great venue for the Explorer map analysis and map creation lessons.

Lemke's GIS Gang: Ann Arbor Middle Schoolers Tackle GIS Before School

Introduction

Wendy Lemke is a 6th grade teacher at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She’s part of the GIS Resources and Applications for Career Education Project (GRACE, GRACE Project ArcGIS Online homepage). The National Science Foundation funded effort aims to expand and disseminate technology-based education for STEM careers in K-12 and the workplace. In 2015 Lemke and other participants attended a one week summer institute and a hybrid (online and face-to-face) 30 hour professional development program focusing on ArcGIS Online.

In September 2015 Lemke launched a before school club, the GIS Gang, for interested six through eight graders. She thoughtfully blogged about the group’s ten weekly meetings. With her permission, I’ve condensed her posts into a shortened “diary” that illustrates some of the excitement and inevitable ups and downs she faced. I encourage interested readers to dive into her unedited posts on GeoNet for “the rest of the story.” Next week I'll follow up with a Q&A on what she learned and suggestions for the other educators.