2007 308 pages $49.95

Technology seems always on the verge of revolutionizing education. In the 1940’s people envisioned television would replace teachers. In the 1960’s we thought “programmed instruction” would guarantee learning. The 1980’s brought personal computers, games, and simulations. In the 1990’s it was the Internet.

GIS mapping software is not the educational revolution of the 21st century, but it is a powerful tool for teaching and learning. Each case study in this volume describes how an experienced instructor has used GIS in the service of his or her own teaching, within the traditions of a classical undergraduate education. Authors describe how they integrated mapping software into their syllabi, pursuing the learning goals of their discipline, striving to create a realistic learning environment in which students practice inquiry in their field. Chapters span the natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities.

The first section of the book addresses overall teaching goals; It describes the role of maps and GIS in teaching important skills: thinking with visual evidence, thinking spatially, creating narratives, reasoning with quantities, and collaborating with communities. Chapters in the first section of this book delineate how these critical thinking skills can be conveyed and practiced through class work and assignments using GIS.

Lund proposes that GIS, as a visual calculator, can encourage even reluctant students to develop their quantitative skills. Whether analyzing populations or rainfall, students are more eager to undertake quantitative operations when their efforts produce a map. Sinton recounts the importance of spatial thinking in learning to use complex information and how a GIS user interface can provide a window into the contents of a database. The many other contributors to this anthology have eagerly shared their successes and candidly discussed the challenges of bringing GIS into the college classroom. Our collective purpose is to help other teachers deepen student engagement by using GIS to manage, analyze, and visualize information.

The majority of chapters are presented as case studies. A few chapters survey educational applications of GIS in their field. Chapters are organized by discipline and can be read in any order. The appendix references keywords by educational topic, such as “collaboration,” and by the nature of data such as “forest.” This structure is intended to facilitate sharing ideas between disciplines. As of this writing, relatively few college and university instructors have integrated maps and GIS into their courses. These examples are a tiny subset of possible applications, and an indication of the many other creative stories that we hope will follow.

About the authors:

Diana Stuart Sinton is the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Program Director for the National Institute for Technology & Liberal Education, an organization funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to facilitate the effective use of technology at liberal arts colleges. Diana is a frequent presenter to college faculty, staff, and administration on the role that GIS can play in teaching and learning across their college curricula. She has been working with GIS since 1991 as a student, researcher, consultant, and instructor. She has studied and mapped the patterns of windthrown trees, oil wells, polka-playing radio stations, and invasive plants. For five years she taught GIS and geography at Alfred University in New York. In 2002, she earned an International Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation and conducted six months of GIS-based research in the national park system of Argentina. She holds BA, MS, and PhD degrees from Middlebury College and Oregon State University.

Jennifer J. Lund supports the faculty at Wheaton College in Massachusetts in their endeavors to innovate with technology in their teaching. While managing a $50-million dollar grant program at Digital Equipment Corporation, she was schooled in the full range of learning theory and technology by innovative professors from across the country, as they explained their grant proposals and their aspirations to improve their teaching practice through cutting edge application of computers in the classroom. Since then she has been researching and implementing applications of computers to teaching and learning, both in industry, and at Wellesley and Wheaton Colleges. She holds a B.A. from Wellesley College and an M.Ed. from Harvard University Graduate School of Education.