I had the pleasure of publishing a feature from Steven Branting many years ago in GeoWorld, and I’m now quite pleased that he’s written a feature for V1 Magazine at the urging of Jeff Thurston about passing on the passion for technology and geography.It’s truly inspiring to hear about approaches that work to spread the use of GIS among grade school students. Steven certainly goes above and beyond in his work as a teacher and technology instructor, fostering passion among students with meaningful fieldwork that aids comprehension and for empowers his students to apply technology to complex problem solving.
“We have found success using GIS to give 7th grade social studies students a grasp of geographic relationships, projections and spatial analysis. United States history students mine census data to better understand the demographics of our population. Earth science students explore planetary dynamism through volcanology, seismology, climatology and oceanography. Life sciences students have extensive libraries of wildlife habitats, both current and historic, on every continent. We have supplemented our data libraries to include local county layers, paths of exploration, minerals and aquifers, among others. Student enrollment in GIS seminars now exceeds 500 each semester.”
Read the full feature here.
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Thank you for your comments. I appreciate the opportunity to expand our audience for authentic GIS work with students.