GIS Education Weekly: APHG Study App, Navy GEOINT Certification, AAG and GeoMentors

The iScore5 logo; the tagline:
The app built by expert teacher
for savvy students

Three Geography Teachers Pool Money, Create APHG Study App

Greg Sherwin, a Stevenson High School in Illinois and a pair of instructors in Arkansas and Georgia developed iScore5 a mobile-device application for students preparing for the Advanced Placement human geography exam. The app aims to make prepping/drilling into a social game. The effort is self-funded and two former students are doing the coding. iScore5 launches March 1 with a free "lite" version and $4.99 full version for iOS. As of 2013 120,000 students took the APHG test of the four million who took any AP test. I wrote more extensively about the app earlier this week.

EMU to Teach GIS to Teachers

Eastern Michigan University received a $1.5 million National Science Foundation grant to teach teachers GIS. Head of the Institute for Geospatial Research and Education, Yichun Xie is the lead. The Institute will partner with Michigan Virtual University to help 120 Michigan teachers implement mapping and analysis applications that reach more than 5000 eighth to 12th grade students in Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Saginaw and the Upper Peninsula. There are more details in the school's announcement.

Virginia Tech Meteorology and Geography

The meteorology program at Virginia Tech is relatively young, however the program has grown to about 115 students in just a couple years. It aims to produce students with not only atmospheric science skills, but also with geographic information science (GIS) skills, which open more career options.