kilmacfurl KMF's List: GIS and Env Education

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   In addition to its educational utility, Google Earth is a great research tool.
• 
   Google Earth, due to its ease of use, can become a standard part of everyday discussion in the classroom.
• ses during a course on coastal processes, Google Earth can provide a quick look at the appropriate aerial imagery or plotted hurricane path, especially if the in
• However, Google also offers various forms of support for educators, students, scientists, and non-profit organizations in the form of software or financial support
• features that some people would like to see improved. For example, with the settings on the timeline, inexperienced.
• 
   No software product is perfectly designed, and with Google Earth, there
• design
• arth API, which, in contrast to Google Earth, are used in web browsers
• 
   There are many mapping applications in addition to Google Earth. Google also offers Google Maps and the Goo
• However, the Google Maps API enables individuals to develop customized Google Maps applications that have buttons, forms, panels, photographs, and specialized map layers added to the conventional Google Maps interface.
• Google Earth API was specifically designed to enable people to create and embed three dimensional globes in web pages that incorporate some of Google Earth's features, such as its imagery, its navigation tools, and some of its layers, including terrain.
• While Google Earth is an excellent teaching tool, it does not offer the analytical capabilities of a full-featured geographic information system such as ArcGIS or MapInfo.
• and that simplified software may hinder creativity on the part of the user by offering reduced opportunity for control in comparison to GIS software.
  
• Google Earth should provide students with a sense of how its small set of analytical capabilities differs from those of a full-featured GIS. In courses that include a relatively small amount of map use that does not require a great deal of analysis, Google Earth is generally the best choice.

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• • SDK - software development kit - set of development tools that allows for the creation of applications for a certain software package.
    May be e.g. an Application programming interface (API) in the form of some files to interface to a particular programming language.
• Geographic Information Systems, is basically taking data and plotting it on maps. By mapping the data it is often much easier to spot patterns or trends. In education GIS can be a perfect tool for inquiry based labs.
• GIS becomes even more powerful when we bring the power of computers to bear

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• echnology-led project that gives priority to functionality over business value. A budg
• A budget-holder will often lack knowl
• dge regarding GIS and how it can positively impact business; occasionally, they even display cynicism as to its capacity for delivering value.

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• Maps have fascinated humans for thousands of years. They date back to the earliest forms of communicatio
• he technologies used by the GIS community are evolving rapidly and are becoming more user-friendly each day.
• GIS also supports interdisciplinary learning.
• ntegrate what students are learning
• GIS maps are only as good or accurate as the data that go into them.
• GIS allows people to see data at both large and small scales
•              In addition to providing the basis for treatment plans, GIS maps can be a powerful education tool. By sharing up-to-date data with neighboring land owners, land managers are seeing increased interest in battling the spread of weeds. The GIS technology allows land managers to illustrate—in a picture—the hypothetical or potential exponential growth of weed infestations over time. Indeed, these pictures do speak thousands of words.
• FOR THE CLASSROOM
• classroom
• Back in the classroom, they produced updated GIS maps, analyzed the proposed route, and developed a preferred alternative route for the road. They shared their data with the state’s Automated Geographic Reference Center and were most pleased when they compared their preferred route with that of the Utah Transportation Authority—they matched! The students’ teacher credits the GIS exercise with teaching them how to think spatially and integrating subject areas such as geography, math, and language arts. But most impressive is that the fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students met challenges and complexities normally expected of individuals twice their age.
• Although GIS can display a limitless amount of information, displaying multiple layers of data at once can make a map indecipherable.

• Here, through private and federal grants and ongoing assistance from the Bureau of Land Management, officials have trained students to conduct extensive urban tree inventories using GPS and GIS technologies on the school’s 81 hectare wooded campus. A fully-operational GIS laboratory at the school is used by all urban forestry, biology, and chemistry classes. Training includes a three-day teacher workshop on Arcview, a popular GIS software, and student instruction in GPS and tree species identification. Students then receive instruction on how to collect data and use the Piney Woods Tree Inventory System to complete an Urban Ecological Analysis. The urban forestry class meets once a week, alternating sessions between field data collection and computer laboratory data entry. By plotting trees on a map of their campus and then recording information such as tree location, size, and species, students can calculate air pollution removal rates, energy conservation, carbon storage, and sequestration rates for their urban forest. In the process, students learn the value of trees in urban environments, such as reducing air pollution, conserving energy by providing shade to buildings and air conditioning units, reducing erosion, and providing aesthetic improvements. For more information on this program, go to http://www.pineywoods.org, then click on Facilities.

   
• A major benefit of GIS is that it can depict only the data that are needed.

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• h still not widely used in schools compared with other educational technologies, GIS has been shown to be a beneficial tool which can be used to analyze and integrate a variety of data pertaining to environmental issues.
• As GIS software, hardware, and training continue to become more accessible to schools, teachers, and students, we can expect to see a continued increase in the use of GIS for environmental education
• on program serving kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12) students. Over 100,000 K-12 students from all over the world are exposed to the program, but the majority are located in North America. T
• e educational philosophy of Journey North is
• to involve students directly in the measurement and recording of events which mark seasonal changes (e.g., animal migrations), which provides a focus for studying the underlying natural systems.

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