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Tuesday, April 08, 2014

Virtual Geography Convention 2014: Teaching Geography with SpatiaLABS

Welcome to the Virtual Geography Convention 2014!  If you wish to submit to the virtual geography convention please contact catholicgauze [at] gmail [dot] com.
ESRI is promoting the use of SpatiaLABS, a series of lessons using GIS to teach geography and solve geography problems.  These lessons sound interesting and educational.  I especially support the emphasis of GIS as a tool and the main thing to learn.

ESRI describes the project as
SpatiaLABS are standalone activities designed to promote spatial reasoning and analysis skills. Covering a wide variety of subject matter useful in standard computer-lab sessions and longer term projects, SpatiaLABS illuminate relationships, patterns and complexities while answering provocative questions like "How might visibility have affected political boundaries in ancient civilizations?" or "Is there a connection between ethnicity and exposure to industrial toxins?" or "How worried should I be about the stagnant pond a quarter mile away?"
So what's the role of geographic information systems, GIS, in SpatiaLABS? GIS is merely a tool for revealing those illuminating relationships, patterns and complexities. Students will undoubtedly develop GIS and cartography skills while performing SpatiaLABS, but these are secondary outcomes. SpatiaLABS concentrate on introducing, developing and reinforcing spatial reasoning and analysis skills. Levels of labs
You'll find instructional materials in Microsoft Word and other common formats. Go ahead, change or add self-assessment questions, tweak the context for the analysis, rework the lab to use local data. Customize SpatiaLABS to suit your non-commercial needs.
Available lessons are

INDEPENDENT TOPICS
BUSINESS COURSE
FORESTRY COURSE

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