The Geospatial Semester is a unique year-long course in secondary schools in the U.S. state of Virginia. Students learn about geospatial technologies and apply them to problems of interest. Designed as an alternative to the test-driven ethos in American education, students in the Geospatial Semester have proven to be adept at both using GIS software (such as ESRI's ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Online) and at identifying problems that are amenable to geospatial analysis. Students can earn college credit as they complete the class and we've substantial numbers of students use this experience to garner internships and to open up unanticipated field of study in tertiary education. Founded in 2005, this project has served more than 5,000 students and has allowed us to closely study both the behavioral and cognitive impact of the use of these tools on student's spatial thinking and problem-sovling. In this presentaiton, we'll share the history of the project, examples of student work, the research that has been done to date, and the challenges of disseminating the Geospatial Semester to a larger audience. We'll characterize the traits of the high school teachers who successfully mentor and support the students. We'll also discuss ways in which the Geospatial Semester serve as a model for Geography education.
Mots clés : Geospatial thinking|GIS|project-based learning|geography education
A102325BK